Skysong Soundworks: A NOTAM About Audio/Legacy Audio In MSFS 2020

Hello Pilots,

I've had quite a few sim pilots writing in asking about purchasingand using my audio packages in MSFS 2020. This is what little I knowright now. I spent a few weeks digging through the file system of thenew sim. It was my original thinking that Asobo would use either FMODor WWISE with this new software....they chose WWISE. It is morecomplex to work in but can produce really cool audio if donecorrectly. I'm an old dog now, we'll see if I can learn some newtricks...I'm not sure about it yet. I've spent some time in the otherforums talking to a few other developers about how we are going toapproach the add-on audio side of things.

What I can gather for now is when an add-on aircraft is producedthe (Legacy Audio) .wav files have to be added to a (json) file inorder for them to work. I purchased IndiaFoxtEcho's two recentreleases and did some experimentation with the audio in thoseaircraft. I learned you cannot just add the old legacy sounds andsound cfg to an add-on aircraft and expect it to work...it won't. Itsa bit like the audio work I did in Aerofly FS 2....I had to create thesounds then run them through a converter that was provided to me inthe SDK. It works fairly well, but you do lose some of the high enddefinition by using this process. That is one of the things I've soloved about the original FS sound engine...the less you edited thesounds the more pure they were for the end user.

Okay....so what is my main point here? I, like many others arefrustrated with the current state of the simulator. We are used togetting a new buggy and want to start taking it apart right away tosee how the little bits inside work. Well we can't do that yet! Wewill have to wait until it is more stable and the SDK is ready fortinkering.

The other drawback is (LOAD TIMES) O.M.G. it would take me all dayto do what used to take a few hours per work session. Very inhibitiveat this point. I do hear some very good audio happening in thissimulator...I feel I can still produce some great stuff and stay inthe game a while longer which I would love to do. Even 24 years laterI still have some fascination with simulators and the enjoyment theybring to us all.

In closing...no do not purchase my sound work to use in MSFS2020...it won't work. For now we continue to produce audio for P3D,FSX SE, FS2004 and a bit for X-Plane 11.

Thanks for reading and please stay clear of COVID-19!

Cheers,
Aaron Swindle
Skysong Soundworks
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