WOFF's sounds are much improved over OFF. However, I feel that it could be tweaked a bit more to get them realistic as possible without modding.

I've tried Ambient settings, but the engine is too low and I can hear trains and dogs barking from a few hundred feet off the ground.

In Realistic settings the engine sound wipes all other sounds, but I can also hear the shell explosions coming from the front several miles away.

Here is what I found from an old post at: http://combatace.com/topic/67981-sound-settings-in-workshop/

ENGINE - own engine and damaged engine sound
EFFECTS - flak, wind, AI-engine, so to say everything from outside besides guns
COCKPIT - your own guns, guns from external view and AI guns
USER I/F - everything in non-missions. buttons, sound of switching pages etc.

So far, I have these settings which are pretty close to what I want. The engine is loud, I can hear rips in the fabric, wood creaking and cracking, bullet hits, but I can still faintly hear the shell explosions miles away (and sometimes even the dog barks). This confuses me as I'm thinking there are enemies nearby and the AA are firing at them.

ENGINE - 40
EFFECTS - 40
COCKPIT - 30
USER I/F - 30

I'm wondering if anyone has tried to adjust these settings to their liking and satisfied with the outcome.

Depending of what speakers or headphones you have. If 5.1, then usually the frontspeakers tend to be too loud compared to all other speakers. That's why I have reduced the volume of the frontspeakers to 50% to have it equal with the other surround speakers. Ingame I have
Engine 70
Effects 100
Cockpit 100
User I/F 100

When the engine is running, I can hardly hear the environmental sounds, like trucks and airfields etc. I can hear the effects like bullethits, AI engines and guns from the others well enough, but not too loud to be Hollywood. My own guns I can hear pretty well.

Well Creaghorn you are the "guru" of sound so I will give your settings a try,
Your description sounds like just what I was looking for.

Forgot to mention that I have additional controls for volumes for each speaker, so best would be for you, if you have 5.1 speakers to set your Center Speaker to 50% in windows. All other speakers, front LR, rear LR set to 100%
if you do so then set engine volume to 40 or 50 in WS. That should do.

Cool. Great idea for a thread. Lets everyone compare.

Of course in real life you cannot hear anything but your own engine and wind noise from an open cockpit airplane. You cant hear another aircraft flying information with you. I have tried. No way.

This is something that ROF really messed up and I wanted them to change it for years.....but they wouldn't.

WOFF seems to have done it correctly. I imagine when you hear the explosions from the front (the big arty guns) you are more feeling them rather than hearing them.

As often mentioned by pilots in their memoirs they were able to hear the MGs of other aircraft firing as well, but I agree that, apart from that, they could hear little else besides their own engine and the wind. Likely they also used ear plugs to protect their hearing from the engine and wind noise... I'm going to move from ambient to realistic settings.

Can someone shed some light on the "pilot kill" and "pilot wound" effect? Sometimes when I shoot an enemy I hear heavy breathing in the cockpit (it sounds like someone very close is engaged in a heavy workout or maybe having sex ). Suppose that is the enemy being wounded, but it's kinda whacky to hear him panting in my cockpit so I'd like to change the sound...

Thanks for the tips Creaghorn

For me, I can do without the panting. The red screen and health percentages are enough to know when I get injured.

So, now how can I remove my breathing sound and the enemy breathing sound (I don't want to know if I injured the guy or not) WITHOUT breaking my game.

@yaan98 check this thread by Hellshade: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3889902

nibbio- Yeah, I remember that was a funny post.

But I'm wondering if it's as simple as just removing only the pilothit*.wav files (for me + enemy sounds), or do I need to alter the effects.xml file in any way (without screwing things up, of course)?

EDIT: Creaghorn's suggestions turned out to be just right.

play it safe: don't edit the effects.xml, don't remove the files, just replace them with "silent" wav files

Good advice. Thanks.

Cregahorn,

Do you have any sound volume suggestions for those of us who use headphones?
I've been using the 'Realistic" mix in workshops.

Yaan,

The one change I made was to replace the dreaded air raid siren, as I did in OFF.
Hearing that thing at 10,000 feet just didn't do it for me.

I used a free utility, AudioBlast, to mute the sound. Not sure if it matters but as the airraidsiren file was larger (250k),
I substituted a muted Bird chirp (3k in size) and renamed it.

All in all, I think WOFF's sounds top notch. I wonder if they would be better with a higher sound card?

With headphones you mean Stereo? Because often Headohones are have also 5.1 or 7.1

Actually I don't know cause i'm using 5.1 setups, speakers and headphones, but in stereo it should be easier to find the right balance since all is merged into two speakers. Just try and see what for you feels best. Some want to have more Hollywood, some want to hear only the own engine. Just play with the WS settings and try.

Thanks Creaghorn. I'm using Audiophile headphones and onboard sound so I think it's Stereo and not 5.1 or 7.1.

I will muck about and see if I can improve on the stock setup of "Realistic Sounds"

Are you using a dedicated higher end sound card or onboard?

Since I also create Sound-Mods, I would always prefer a Sound-Card. A "heavy" Model it does not have to be necessarily, there are very good Sound-Cards in the 50 to 80 Euro Range. I would always prefer a Sound-Card to Onboard-Sound. The differences are actually heard... In Addition, the Processor is not loaded therewith.

...and probably my guns, very near AI engines and near flak explosions.

That's where I'm trying to get to, so I'm running:

Engine: 100
Effects: 0
Cockpit: 100
User I/F: 100

But I would like to bring back some of the effects like wind, near flak explosions, anything I would really hear but nothing I shouldn't hear with the engine running (and I'd like to hear the dog barking, etc after I kill my engine). I'm not going to add it to the wish list yet, but when things settle down I'm going to wish for a "real deal" sound setting in Workshop as there's just too many pieces to try to put it together by editing sound files.

I guess for now I'll start increasing the Effects level to see what I start picking up first.

Bucksnort, this is a thing that could only get managed in the Sound-XML File. Tweaking this file is a lot of work and you need much time. You must change different Values for the Distances, Stereo or Mono, Random or not, and so on. This XML-File is a beast.
I know this, because I've made a Sound-Mod for Phase 3 some time ago. And since this Mod was finished, it took nearly 3 Months. And even today I'm still tweaking some files again and again.

But, it's not impossible and it can be done. But you need time... Perhaps I can help you out

Hi Andy,

That would be fantastic. If you do it for yourself please keep me in the loop. I don't know anything about sound files and its beyond me. But it would be great to have full real sounds...where you hear the dog barking or trucks going by after you kill the engine (all that is great), but only things you should hear when the engine is running. I can't imagine all the work it would take! I'll bet it would be a popular mod

I will try out what I can do for the Community. But as I said, this will take it's time...

I tried your settings above just now and they worked really well. Didn't hear anything around me as I came in for my landing, but when I killed the engine I suddenly heard the truck driving past the hangers to my right and some birds. It was very realistic. I'm going to experiment rolling Effects back a little more but these settings are a good place to start. Thanks