[REL] BillCar's Active Sonar Ping Mod Mk.II

[BillCar]

VERSIONS II, IIB, AND IIC RELEASED
Version IIC Released:
http://www.filefront.com/15787155/Bi...%20Mk%20IIC.7z

March 9, 2010:
Version IIC increases the squeak volume and leaves the impact volume as is. The squeak is audible while enemy is pinging, impact sound is generally too quiet to hear until the game increases the sound file volume to let you know that "Enemy is pinging us, sir!". The effect may depend on your personal speaker set-up, but as it is now, when I am playing, I find that I can't notice the impact sound until the enemy is getting a return on me - which would make sense from a realistic standpoint. This file continues to use the recording of the 40s/50s ping being recorded inside an old sub by the US Navy. These recordings were declassified and released in the 1960s by a sonar development company. The recordings themselves were presumably made in the 1940s or early 1950s.

VersionII:
http://www.filefront.com/15726323/Bi...Ping%20MkII.7z
MP3 of the uncoated hull sound (this MP3 is for demonstration purposes only; the file sounds much better in the game, so do try it in-game before deciding you hate it!):


Version IIB:
http://www.filefront.com/15733667/Bi...%20Mk%20IIB.7z

March 3rd, 2010:

Have made another version with a less-dramatic impact sound which mimics that heard on the HNSA recording more closely.

March 2nd, 2010:

I found an audio file that depicts active sonar hitting a submarine as recorded over an open microphone inside the submarine itself. This recording was declassified by the USN in the 1950s and released by a sonar development company in the 1960s. It is perhaps as old as the 1940s.

You can listen to it here: http://www.hnsa.org/sound/soundinthesea/track32.mp3

There is an audible "squeak" from the ping, followed (on two occasions) by a metallic impact sound - one of these is clearly audible at 0:04 following the squeak at 0:03, and the second is audible at 0:15 following the squeak at 0:13.

The Alberich sounds are still the weak point, since I don't really know how they should sound – I just shorten the impact and turn down the volume. I don't play in Alberich subs myself, so that's not a huge issue for me.

Download and enable with JSGME, and let me know what you think!
http://www.filefront.com/15726323/Bi...Ping%20MkII.7z

February 18th, 2010:
The general consensus is that a U-boat on the receiving end of active sonar heard something described as anything between "a pebble being dropped on the hull" to "wires dragging along the hull" or "a sledgehammer hitting the hull." The Hollywood ping is pure fantasy.

My aim is to make a ping sound that may be reasonably close to those sounds, or even a mix thereof.

To that end, I began experimenting with dropping pebbles on steel plating, hitting it with hammers, dragging wires along it... you know, normal stuff that normal people do.

I make my living as a musician, and so I have a few decent microphones. I also have a homemade piezo-electronic "hydrophone" (basically just a contact microphone that I can put in the bathtub without causing it to blow up, or myself to die).

In short, I've made some recordings outdoors, in my bathtub, and in a basement studio. Now I need to tweak them. I believe the recordings taken in the basement are actually the best – if one thinks about it, recording in the bathtub really makes no sense (I just wanted to try it out), since the submariners were not themselves in an aqueous environment when they heard the noise – the impact on the hull outside should transmit "dry" to the ears of those on the inside.

In the interests of maximum realism, I do also intend to test out a recording wherein I float a steel box with an open top in the bathtub. I will put a non-waterproof microphone inside the box, and then smack the outside bottom and sides of the box (which will be underwater) with pebbles, wires, and a ball-peen hammer (you know, normal bath-time stuff) to see if this works better, but I doubt it will. So far, I've narrowed it down to the basement recording, which will then be modified for the Alberich and improved Alberich (shortening of the sound, dampening of the sound, lowering of the pitch of the sound).

The most common reports I have found have likened it to the pebble sound, so that will be the dominant sound you hear, but I will tweak it to maybe have a little bit more of a "hammer" sound and a "wire-dragging" decay.

The fruits of my labours are coming along nicely, and I hope to be able to present you guys with something semi-finished by the weekend. I am generally not free to play SH3 during the week, so fixes and testing done by me may have to wait from weekend to weekend.

I know that there are differing opinions on what constitutes realism, and I know the community can be a bit critical, but I am going to leave the mod open to criticism and try to be gracious in accepting it, in the hopes that we can mod it as necessary. That said, I do aim to present a completed mod to begin with as well.

EDIT:

Here is Mk. I: the Alberich coating sounds are kind of lame, but I will work on them later (they are not a personal priority, since I have never used a U-boat with Alberich in the game).

It has been tested with Thomsen's Sound Pack, and I did not experience any conflicts. This is my first mod, so please let me know if things are in order. I enabled it with JSGME, and you should be able to as well.

Please note that if you are using Thomsen's Sound Pack, when the sonar operator tells you "Enemy is pinging us, sir!", the recording Thomsen uses includes the Hollywood-style ping in the background. So if you hear that briefly in the midst of the pebble-pings, it's an artifact from the Thomsen mod.

Version 1:
http://www.filefront.com/15620347/Bi...Ping%20Mk.I.7z



Hopefully there will be some interest in this.