X-Plane 9 Upgrade - JERA Sound

I am delighted to announce that Chris Wraight, alias “Dataroots”, will be providing sound effects for the Comet. We have been swapping files, and it’s sounding very good indeed.

As any avid cinema buff knows, good sound can immerse the watcher in an adventure in a way simple 2D vision can’t hope to do, making the whole film involving, and even heart-poundingly exciting. Dataroots’ mission is to do the same thing for X-Plane. At the moment, it’s like swimming against the tide, because X-Plane’s sound capability lags behind its contemporaries. Long term, we are all campaigning for comprehensive, high-quality, state-of-the-art audio; meanwhile, with his library of original recordings, and considerable experience as a sound engineer, Dataroots has exercised his own kind of magic. Think of Heinz Dziurowitz’s Spitfire, or Jacques Brault’s shatteringly loud Shackleton.

Jet engines are a particular nuisance in X-Plane. Real gas-turbines, especially early turbojets in the 1940s-60s, have a characteristic, high-pitched whine at idle, or when taxiing. When they’re on full thrust, the whine is overpowered by a deep, ripping, roaring sound as the jet efflux tears against the air around it. Ordinary X-Plane sound does not handle those two extremes, but JERA does. JERA, or Jet Engine Rocket Assisted, allows Dataroots to combine jet engine sounds and rocket sounds to create a much more realistic and thrilling effect. To listen to JERA sound right now, download Geiger’s beautiful de Havilland Venom.

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GMM-P (04/10/2009)