When SoFly released Airport ALIVE at the end of August, there was little you had to do with it. You just had to install it and listen, with no in-sim toolbar or EFB app required. It was a hands-off product on purpose. About three weeks later, the main change in its first major update is the one thing that pitch left out: a control panel that lives inside the simulator.
That’s the core of version 1.2.0, which SoFly has now pushed to Airport ALIVE: Global Base Pack. The studio describes the new in-sim panel as a highly requested feature from the community, and the reasoning is easy to follow. A product that reads live simulator data and plays sound across hundreds of airports will feel different for each simmer, so a fair number of buyers wanted to reach in and set levels themselves rather than take the automatic mix as it comes.
The in-sim panel
According to SoFly, the panel handles both large strokes and fine detail. You can adjust every sound bank globally or on a per-airport basis, toggle individual airport sounds on or off, and set separate volumes for external and cockpit views. There are switches for the dynamic behavior, cockpit attenuation, and weather sound effects, plus an on-screen keyboard so console players get the same control as PC users.
The more interesting addition is what SoFly calls Live Audio Detection. The company says the panel shows you where the sound emitters are around you, how close you are to them, and what volume you should be hearing, along with the current dynamic elements and the decibel level of each sound bank. In practice that should turn the panel into a diagnostic tool as much as a mixer, since it tells you whether the airport you’re sitting at is actually covered before you go hunting for sound that may not be there. A debug mode rounds it out for anyone who needs to send information to SoFly support.
AeroTone, SoFly’s aircraft-focused audio package, shipped with its own in-sim panel from day one. With 1.2.0, both of the studio’s global audio products now offer hands-on control from inside the sim, so the two lines are starting to work the same way.
More airports, and an early crack at ATC
The pack has also grown. SoFly says 1.2.0 adds more than 130 airports, taking the total past 630, and brings in over 90 new audio effects for ramps, runways, and taxiways for more variation in what you hear on the move.
Then there’s ATC. When Airport ALIVE launched, SoFly said localized ATC chatter and terminal announcements were slated for future regional expansion packs, so hearing radio activity sounded like a paid, region-by-region thing to come. Version 1.2.0 takes a smaller step ahead of that: the base pack now includes experimental generic ATC audio at many airports, free. SoFly is clear that this is early work and will be expanded in later updates, and the wording suggests it’s generic ambience rather than the localized, region-specific chatter still planned for the expansions. Even so, it brings a taste of one of the product’s headline future features into the base package sooner than the original roadmap implied.
On the housekeeping side, SoFly reports performance improvements for systems with less memory, better audio spacing for weather, and a range of bug fixes and stability work across PC and console. The studio also says the installation size has come down despite the larger and higher-quality audio banks, which is a welcome combination given how often add-ons move in the other direction.
Airport ALIVE: Global Base Pack v1.2.0 is available now, and SoFly says the update is free to existing customers through their original store of purchase. For anyone who hasn’t picked it up yet, the pack sells for £14.99 excluding taxes from SoFly, with availability through various partner stores as well.
If you already own it, this is a straightforward download that gives you control you didn’t have before. If you passed on it at launch because the automatic-only approach didn’t appeal, the in-sim panel changes that calculation, and the experimental ATC chatter gives you a preview of where SoFly wants to take the product next.
