I would love to hear the sound of our Harriers in DCS sound like this.

[ErpetoGR]

This is an incredible video I found randomly on Youtube. I was blown away by the quality of the sound effects from outside and inside the jet. Based on real life cockpit footage it sounds so close to the real one. If it's possible for a colaboration with these guys by Razbam to bring those in DCS officially that would lift the module a lot and I'm solid sure that the owners would appreciate a more authenticate feeling of this jet. 

 

[yngvef]

Yes, please! That would be so much better. Making it sound like it actually has a jet engine rather than the embarrassment we have now.
Anyone who has seen real Harriers on airshows or something knows that they are absolutely deafening when hovering.

Edited October 20, 2022 by yngvef
Spelling

[Dragon1-1]

Certainly better than the wheezing earrape that we have now. Sounds like an old vacuum that's about to die, recorded with a cheap mike. I think I can make a soundmod to smooth it out a little, but I can't improve it much beyond that. I practically stopped flying the Harrier because the engine sound is just so horrible.

[kotor633]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Dragon1-1:

Certainly better than the wheezing earrape that we have now. Sounds like an old vacuum that's about to die

Unfortunately true...And: Now you've seen a work by DC Designs. Because this software company hasn't said anything to me yet. And shouldn't DC Designs be releasing something soon/something in DCS World? Another map?

[Dragon1-1]

I don't see anything by them on the forum, but RAZBAM should poach their sound engineer. Or really, hire any sound engineer. They don't even have menu music for their modules, and their audio is their weakest point (although Mirage is getting better). That makes me thing they either don't have a sound guy or he's no good.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[Beirut]

I think the sound is okay, though I understand others don't. But the gun sound, my god... it's terrible. Sounds like a cat speed farting.

[yngvef]

My worry is that Razbam doesn't care about this. They've known for a very long time that their sounds are bad, but Razbam official never comments on it.

[exhausted]

This doesn't sound like much better than a Harrier recorded with a mic from 2006 point and shoot. I feel like this since that's what I used to record several Harriers while having worked on them for a few years. This would be a serious downgrade, in my humble opinion.

[Dragon1-1]

Can hardly be a downgrade from what we have. Sure, it'd be nice to a have a proper recording, but the current sound inside the cockpit is awful. If you worked on the Harrier, you probably know jet engines don't wheeze like that unless there's something seriously wrong with them.

[XCNuse]

Razbam redid the audio of the Harrier not that long ago.

Not sure what you folks are on but the Harrier does NOT sound pretty.....

But what we have currently from Razbam sounds FAR more accurate than that video recording DCD shoved into MSFS.

 

 

In-cockpit you have to ignore the obvious GoPro rattles.

 

 

[exhausted]

3 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Can hardly be a downgrade from what we have. Sure, it'd be nice to a have a proper recording, but the current sound inside the cockpit is awful. If you worked on the Harrier, you probably know jet engines don't wheeze like that unless there's something seriously wrong with them.

I was a jet engine mechanic on the Pegasus and I can tell you the F402 sounds rather whiny until you rev it up. The sounds in the original post sound wimpier than what we have and quite different than the real thing. 

 

I spent very little time in the cockpit, and even then it was only at idle. The sounds we have now are pretty good to my recollection. What's your recollection telling you?

[Mars Exulte]

The old sounds sucked. The new rework Razbam did is pretty good, and sounds very close to most videos I've seen. I think this is a case of people doing the audio equivalent of complaining that "afterburners in DCS don't look like the ones on YouTube!!11!!11!" Not every gamer rambling about stuff online knows what's he's talking about.

[sgtoinkz]

Sounds pretty accurate in my opinion. I haven't launched, recovered or ran a Harrier in years. It's a sound that I cannot forget. With that, I was shocked by the sound and overall quality when I purchased the module earlier this year. I have worked with both the USMC and RAF GR variants (2003-2008). I feel like the motors in the RAF (-406's) birds seemed to whine more than our 408's did, especially as mentioned above by @exhausted when the bird is idling. I've never heard the older DCS sounds to compare that to what other users have mentioned. My guess is I made my purchase well into updates of the DCS Module we have at this point. I'm sure there could be minor adjustments for some fan chatter in the cockpit, especially when coasting down from shutdown....maybe a few "pops" of some blades that need to be greased up! 

Edited October 25, 2022 by sgtoinkz
text correction

[Dragon1-1]

5 hours ago, exhausted said:

What's your recollection telling you?

Every good jet engine I've heard (I live fairly close an airport) had a steady tone. Our Harrier sounds like the RPM is oscillating, and this effect does not go away when revved up. Not to mention very obvious clipping, the sound was taken directly from a video recorded with a rather poor GoPro mike.

Note that I'm talking about internal cockpit sounds. I didn't spend a whole lot of time listening to the external sound.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[exhausted]

7 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Every good jet engine I've heard (I live fairly close an airport) had a steady tone. Our Harrier sounds like the RPM is oscillating, and this effect does not go away when revved up. Not to mention very obvious clipping, the sound was taken directly from a video recorded with a rather poor GoPro mike.

Note that I'm talking about internal cockpit sounds. I didn't spend a whole lot of time listening to the external sound.

 

OK. I'm not attacking you. I remember the pitch of the Pegasus motors having small changes at similar power settings. The Pegasus has a few digital modules that make regular adjustments to the performance output of the engine, including regulating fuel flow. I spent literally hours and hours next to Harriers revving up their engines until the nozzles turned transparent-red. The idling always struck me as a little 'wavvy', so not to beat a dead horse, but the current sounds are pretty accurate.

That being said, there are some things that could be perfected. For one, the chatter of the first stage LPC could be modeled so that when you start the motor, you hear the blades bumping into each other. The 23 blades of the LPC first stage have small gaps and a bit of wiggle in them, so you hear them chatter when the engine turns at low speeds. 

[Dragon1-1]

Yeah, you can already hear it in the Viper, as it spools down. That would be nice.

TBH, my biggest complaints are about the cockpit sounds, which has major oscillations in volume. I'm pretty sure that this is wrong. In fact, you can see it in the waveform itsef:

Those thicker areas are serious changes in sound, almost as if there was another, more complex sound cutting in and out. In addition, you can see the uneven amplitude. To me, it sounds like a turbine on its last legs.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[Hoirtel]

I think our harrier is pretty good, but the internal cockpit sound are missing the addition of the buzzing noise. You can hear this in the DC designs and in the Irl video posted above.

[exhausted]

The cockpit noises in the DCD and the IRL video sound nothing alike. 

 

Just a question: but if your experience on judging jet engine noises is living next to an airport, then you are listening to jet noises from a distance and from the outside. How exactly does that equate to knowing what it should sound like inside a Harrier, with a helmet and insulated communication gear covering your ears? Those videos are not what a pilot would hear. You can't hear the comms and the warning indicators without the communication equipment. And if you have the communication gear on, then you can't hear the raw noise presented in the videos.

 

Please forgive me if I seem overly rude, but could you imagine how disappointing it would be for real pilots and maintainers with Harrier experience to hear the sounds changed to suit the tastes of someone whose experience is listening to assorted planes fly away in the distance? 

Edited October 25, 2022 by exhausted

[Dragon1-1]

Even if that's the case, the current sound has a large number of artifacts. The volume oscillations in particular, and the "cutting in" of the more complex sound do not sound like anything you'd hear from an RL system, but rather, like distortions originating from the microphone. In all cockpit videos except one from which this sound is taken, the oscillations are slight, the volume is constant, and the buzz is nowhere to be heard, certainly not cutting in and out every second or so. There's simply no way for the helmet, or anything in the cockpit (barring some sort of cabin fan intermittently turning on and off) to produce that kind of distortion. 

I'm quite familiar with how turbines work, and while the Harrier does have digital controls that introduce more complexity than the basic physics describe, but that simply does not account for all the strange features of this sound sample. The real sound is there, but it needs to be seriously cleaned up.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[Mars Exulte]

14 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Our Harrier sounds like the RPM is oscillating

 Next time I fly it I will pay closer attention. It definitely used to do that, it was extremely obviously a short looping audio. When I was messing with it a day or so ago I didn't notice looping, so if it does it's not as bad as it used to be. You couldn't NOT notice it a year or two ago (I used to run a mod that fixed it). I really like the whining when moving throttle, and the cutout when you land. Very similar to the real thing.

14 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Note that I'm talking about internal cockpit sounds. I didn't spend a whole lot of time listening to the external sound.

I couldn't comment on the exterior. I'm just now getting back into the game after most of two years away.

[Dragon1-1]

I'll check again in 2.8, maybe they fixed it, but last time I flew it, it was the same, and the problematic file is still there. I actually managed to splice it into something tolerable (basically used a stretch algorithm on a small bit that didn't have issues, then copied the result in reverse so it'd loop). We'll see if that did anything.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[exhausted]

17 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Even if that's the case, the current sound has a large number of artifacts. The volume oscillations in particular, and the "cutting in" of the more complex sound do not sound like anything you'd hear from an RL system, but rather, like distortions originating from the microphone. In all cockpit videos except one from which this sound is taken, the oscillations are slight, the volume is constant, and the buzz is nowhere to be heard, certainly not cutting in and out every second or so. There's simply no way for the helmet, or anything in the cockpit (barring some sort of cabin fan intermittently turning on and off) to produce that kind of distortion. 

I'm quite familiar with how turbines work, and while the Harrier does have digital controls that introduce more complexity than the basic physics describe, but that simply does not account for all the strange features of this sound sample. The real sound is there, but it needs to be seriously cleaned up.

 

 

I can understand your concern about artifacts. But, like you I am also very familiar with how turbines work - they were my life for years on end. Yet, I know I cannot tell you what an Olympus, F404, J-79 or  a Jumo 004 is supposed to sound like. These are quintessential engines that have unique signatures, just like the Pegasus. I can tell you what the Pegasus is supposed to sound like, and we are probably <95% of the way there in DCS. However, if there are issues with artifacts or mediocre wavs then I understand that concern as well.

[Dragon1-1]

Try this file, see how it sounds (I just replaced the one in the folder, I don't know how to properly make DCS mods). I've tried to pick a fragment of the file with the fewest artifacts and make it loopable. Makes it sound way better, more "consistent", if you will. Slight pulsing in pitch and volume is still there, but now a lot closer to a video. That's how a smoothly running turbine is supposed to sound. There's a second file with audible artifacts, but they're less pronounced so I didn't touch it.

EDIT: Just remember to strip the garbage IPS added to the file name. I hate that new forum, it's full of pointless JavaScript that does nothing useful but confuse the browser, and the WYSIWG editor is a pile of junk. Bring back BBCode and HTML, please, and attachments that don't automatically try to embed, no matter whether it makes sense or not.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Dragon1-1

[exhausted]

sounds nice

[yngvef]

Those defending the sounds seem to be misunderstanding something. Yes, the idle sounds are okay-ish, at least when parked on the ground, not moving. I've never stood right next to a Harrier with its engine running on idle anyway. I've also never been inside the cockpit of a Harrier that is running its engine. 

But that's not what the main complaints are about. At least not from my point of view.

Try a high power flyby (F3 camera), or hovering seen from an external camera at a distance. It sounds absolute trash. When a real Harrier is hovering a few hundred meters away from you, you don't hear a "tone", all you hear a wall of white noise, almost like an afterburner. Anyone who's ever been to an airshow should know this.

The flyby (something I heard a LOT during NATO exercises where I live some years ago) also sounds like any other jet plane. From the front you'll hear some different tones from it, but from the back it sounds like a jet plane, with more or less just white noise (no discernable "tone"). The white noise mayb have a higher frequency (thinner sound) than maybe an F-16 or something and a bit less volume, but that scrawny "meowwwwww" when it flies by in F3 camera in DCS sounds like complete and utter crap and anyone with ears should be able to hear that.

 

All those talking about how they used to work with Harriers must either have bad recollection or, more likely, are misunderstanding what we are talking about.

 

And yes, I am fully aware that we can't get the full "experience" of hearing a real jet on a computer. But ALL other modules sound more realistic than the Harrier.