Some Notes About the Soundscape

[JesseC757]

EXTERIOR:

• At cruise, the sound is far too quiet, there is not much of a roar from the engines, or wind. There should be some sort of environmental wind sound that should more or less drown out the engines anyway.
• The whine from the engines isn't quite right. The 4 CFM56's are quite screachy as they accelerate past 40% and up to takeoff power. You can quite regularly hear them slightly out of sync making some cool harmonies!
• Buzzsaw sound is too distant, it sounds as if the aicraft is 2KM away, should be more buzzy and intense.

INTERIOR:

• The CFM56-5's on the A320/340 accelerate very slowly up until 30-40% N1, after that they accelerate very rapidly and are responsive especially when launching straight to their takeoff setting. They also have a quirk where they drop pitch ever so slightly when you advance the throttles to stabilize the engines at around 50% N1, as if they overshoot ever so slightly and bring themselves back to their assigned power! Would be nice to have the sounds adjusted to match this. 
• The whine sound in general just doesn't sound like a CFM56, it needs to be more intense and audible.
• Buzzsaw intensity is off internally also, it should have much more of a growl to it. 
• The range of pitch is too low and limited, as if the engines are dramatically derated. On the iniBuilds A340, the buzzsaw isn't really audible until about 90% N1. An A343 at TOGA will have mostly exceeded the buzzsaw range, which starts in the high 70's/low 80's N1. For example: 
• The distinct sound that you get when you advance the throttles is missing entirely, inside and out. It's like a deep roaring sound that's independant of the engine RPM and doesn't change pitch. It's caused by compressor bleed valves being opened as the engine accelerates.
• The transition from cockpit to cabin is abrupt. The cabin is far too quiet, engine sound and environment sound.
• No 3D internal engine sounds. The sound sitting behing the wing should be very different to sitting ahead of the wing, as is sitting over the wing.
• Ground roll sound is missing. Such a shame after how great it is on the A350!

I'm sorry if I seem pedantic... I just really like airplane noises 🙃

[DeeJay]

Absolutely! I'm curious why exactly for the newest airplane, the sounds are so underwhelming. The ones in the A350 are much better and even those in the A300. If you only take the cockpit sounds, even the engine sounds in the A330 sound a lot more credible "A330-like" from the cockpit.

[echo19tyler]

Tyler from Echo 19 here, having worked specifically on the CFM engine sounds for the A340-300, I wanted to share some clarifying notes and reply to what's been said. Really appreciate the time and effort you’ve all put into the detailed feedback. 🙏

Engine Spool-Up / Correction:
Some of what’s being described here may not be a sound issue per se, but rather an engine modelling issue. The sound set is designed to follow the simulation data we’re given; if that data isn’t behaving quite right, you’ll hear it reflected in the audio response as well.

“Lack of Intensity” or Missing 3D Audio:
That definitely shouldn’t be happening. The buzzsaw, whine, and tonal build were very prominent on our end when designing the sounds, especially with all sliders maxed out. You may be running into a bug that’s muting or dropping certain sound layers. We will take a look to make sure nothing slipped into the release build that shouldn’t have. I've received reports that the 92%N1/low derate buzzsaw "pitch" is slightly too low, and I will gladly deploy a fix for it.

A340-300 vs A330/A320 Comparisons:
Worth noting that the A340’s CFM engines are quite different from the 320/330 family. Blade count, shape, and inlet geometry all change the acoustic profile significantly. The A340 does share some of that familiar CFM timbre, but specific nuances, like the “bleed valve rush” you mentioned, don’t exist on this airframe.

Cockpit/Cabin Transition Issues:
That sounds like another potential bug. Sometimes LOD culling can prevent certain sounds from loading correctly. If you’re able to capture a video of that transition, we’d be glad to add it to the internal report and get it sorted.

Ground Roll / Missing Layers:
Those should definitely be there. If you’re not hearing them, that again points toward a larger issue with disappearing sounds, possibly linked to the same 3D load bug. The internal engine soundstage is fully 3D, so we’ll investigate why your experience seems so different.

About Video References:
Random reference videos online can help get a general sense of a sound’s character, but they can also be misleading. Every clip someone sends us usually comes from a different seat, captured with a different camera, using a different mic, etc. Those variables can completely change the tone and balance of what’s being captured. We worked from high-quality, first-hand reference recordings to ensure that what you hear in the sim accurately reflects the actual acoustic behavior of the A340-300, not just how it sounds through a GoPro or an iPhone. 

And lastly, regarding DeeJay’s feedback:
We love seeing passionate engagement. Our goal is always to refine and push realism further, but that process depends on accurate references and firsthand experience. The better the input, the sharper the result. Saying that the A350's experience is better is not helpful feedback, as the A350 is an entirely different aircraft altogether. 

We’ll continue to refine the audio experience to ensure the A340 closely matches its real-life counterpart, given the time available. 

Thanks again to everyone for taking the time to share constructive feedback and for your support. It really does help us improve our projects.

-Tyler

Edited yesterday at 10:50 AM by echo19tyler

[DeeJay]

On 10/9/2025 at 12:49 PM, echo19tyler said:

And lastly, regarding DeeJay’s feedback:
We love seeing passionate engagement. Our goal is always to refine and push realism further, but that process depends on accurate references and firsthand experience. The better the input, the sharper the result. Saying that the A350's experience is better is not helpful feedback, as the A350 is an entirely different aircraft altogether. 

OK, thanks a lot for the quick reaction and for caring so much.

Sorry, I discribed it a little more exact in another thread. But if we have the chance to talk to you as the sound designer, I try to discribe the problem even very exactly by video. I'm rather sure it is NOT a problem of the recordings, but of how the numbers in the configuration file handle them.

So, I catched a short video of the spool up of the A340 in my simulator with some comments at the times when problems show up:

 

- When increasing thrust from idle, the idle sound increases in pitch and decreases in volume, until it slowly disapears with increasing power %, which is both correct.
- At the same time, the "whine" sound comes in, becomes a little louder and increases in pitch, which is also correct. BUT: The pitch increase is way too small! To be precise, from the first apprarence just above idle to full power, it increases by just a fourth (to speak in music intervals). In reality, it increases by about a great sixth to a small seventh, which is a lot more.
- Shortly before full power (or even any FLX power), the buzzsaw comes in - also correct. The buzzsaw sound itself is very correct concerning the pitch and general sound. BUT: The fact that the whine sound, which is still present at full power, is way too low on pitch, gives the wrong intervall between the idle sound and the buzzsaw at full or FLX power. And that is what makes people think the whole buzzsaw would sound unrealistic. But it's just the "whine part", and maybe its volume.

BTW, the pitches/tones do not depend on the microphone, nor on the position of the microphone, but just on the amount of power. A recoding of a tone pitch on a cheap cellphone mic will have the same tones than a high end studio mic, but just wouldn't sound as nice. And the difference between a lower FLX power and full power isn't that significant concerning the pitch. Of course you can tell the difference with some experience, but the interval between the whine and the buzzsaw should be correct (and nearly the same) in both cases. Just the absolute pitches of each own of them is a little different.

Furthermore, I find the whine sound just too low on volume. No matter which video, it's always a little more penetrant in comparison to the idle sound than in the current state of the inibuilds A340.

Sorry for the excessive "music language". Music is a big part of my job. That's why I'm so focussed on the sounds. But let's be honest: Isn't an A340 sound a peace of music for many of us aviation enthusiasts?! 😉

In P3d times, there was a sound configuration called sound.cfg, which coordinated the single sound files (*.wav). There, besides the "vparams" which controlled the volumes of the original sound file at different power settings, we could find...

..."rparams=0.20, 1.0, 0.50, 2.0" (example) => which translates like: "At 0.2 (= 20%) power, the corresponing *.wav is played at 1.0 (= 100%) of its original pitch; and at 0.5 (= 50%) power, the same file is played at 1.5 (= 150%) of its pitch. In between the sound engine of FS/P3d slided the pitch accordingly. It just created a linear function of the pitch of the original file by defining 2 "power points" and assigning a 2 "pitch points" to them. As simple as that. And that was the main parameter that controlled the realism of the engine sound recordings - particually important for the spool sound.

By just alterating the "rparams" (trial and error), I could solve a lot of "pitch problems" in some aircraft without any special audio app, whenever 2 files didn't have a good transition into each other, even in professional aircraft. The Piper 34 Seneca II from Carenado comes to mind.
I think the A340 in the current state has got the same problem, assuming that there is at least one sound file for the "idle" sound, one for "spool" sound, and one for the "buzzsaw" sound: The percentage of the spool/whine sound has to be increased at the "upper" point, until it matches the proper interval at full power between the (still present) whine sound and buzzsaw sound.

So much for the music theory 😛 However, I've got no idea, if these parameters and this configuratoion file still exist in MSFS. And even if it does, it's certainly encrypted, at least if we buy something from the MSFS store like this A340.
I hope I could point out the obvious problem IMO a little more exact. No matter if the engines are modelled completely correct or don't: If the engine simulation remains what it is, it's "just" a matter of adjusting the pitch problem to make it sound more realistic. I think that is what flight simmers care about a lot more, as we are not CFM engeneers 😉

 

11:25

I'm not adressing the problem yet, that the sound in the cabin is currently the same in front of the engine as far behind the engine, because for me, the cockpit sound at this time is the most important thing for me personally.

Best regards,
Dominik

 

Edited 2 hours ago by DeeJay