...you mow the lawn and find a car. That was just one of the laughs on the list of 'You might be a redneck if...' that amused me a while back. Well I had a similar moment today when I found a Heljan 86 whilst tidying up the heap. I remotored my Hornby 86 some time ago using a Heljan Hymek mechanism, which has the same wheelbase as the Hornby model. It's a great runner but the fact that it is the wrong wheelbase started bugging me almost as soon as I had finished it. Sometime later a cheap Heljan
After trying the 60 engine recordings through a bass reflex speaker in a loco I have reluctantly decided that they are not going to be worth running with. Whilst the pounding bass sounds stunning through the hi-fi it simply isn't cutting it in model form. I need to go back and record again from two or three different places and hopefully I'll end up with something more usable. All the other sounds have been edited and sound great from the model so once the engine sounds are captured we're laughi
I'm just reviewing the latest set of recordings from a full day at the ELR yesterday. Fortunately the rain didn't impact on the recordings themselves but merely added to the general discomfort of standing up all day, holding mics in uncomfortable positions and struggling inside confined and dirty places (no, not Bury). After leaving here on Tuesday morning it was raining within 15 minutes and it didn't stop chucking it down until early on Wednesday morning. 50mph all the way up the M6 in heavy t
Coincidentally, a pal has given me a couple of 20's to turn into a v4 sound-fitted top & tail pair (to go with his RHTT set). Work is still in progress but they sound good whistling round together, with the horns etc only coming from the front loco and reversing when you change direction. This wonderous sight might make its way onto You Tube when I've finished tweaking the 20 sound and he's finished his RHTT.
Saturday saw a sojourn down to St Albans for the show followed by a bit of MML
With several months passing since the last entry there's a fair bit to report.
To begin with, what a brilliant summer we've been having for photography. After seeing some superb examples with incredible resolution in Rail Express last month I decided I had to upgrade to a D800 and up my game. Initial results were slightly disappointing (we're talking relative here, disappointing vs those Rail Express photos I'd set as a personal benchmark) but as with most things, application brought progress.
The 67 project was coming along nicely and it was time to start getting the sound vs speed relationship how I wanted it. I fired in some settings based on previous experience and ran the loco round and it was clear all was not well. Before I got to halfway on the throttle the sound had already worked its way up through every notch to full tilt! After studying the flowchart it dawned on me what had happened; the most recent software upgrade from ESU had corrected a discrepancy that has existed in
Well that’s the misery of Christmas over for another year! I actually quite enjoy Christmas itself but two things spoil it for me;
The ridiculous three-month build up, the over-commercialisation of everything, and everyone being on holiday at the same time and clogging up the shops / roads / Post Office etc.
The three things that spoil Christmas for me...
And there’s having your railway time compromised because you have to spend time with family.
Amongst the things that spoil Chr
...will be a bit late. Once again it's been a case of 'real life getting in the way' in the last couple of weeks. I had hoped to have the 60 & 67 out by now but Mrs. B had plans for me in the garden, and the day job, well it's such an inconvenience. Despite this, progress has been made and I now have a few days off so things should pick up a bit.
The 67 is almost there, just a handful of improvements to the flow of the engine sounds to satisfy myself that it's ready. The project sounds g
Coming soon to a DMU near you, Rolls Royce engine sounds courtesy of the Class 127 high-density 'Bed-Pan' unit at Llangollen. After a very successful weekend spent recording the 104 and 127 with Paul I'm afraid to report that the 127 has leapfrogged everything to the top of the editing pile. The unit had a lovely rasping exhaust which we managed to capture in addition to the engines. Rasping exhausts is something the previous DMU's I've recorded didn't have so it had to be done. I know there are
You see there's two kinds of people in this world my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.
A classic line from a classic film, the relevance being; which of the three are these two in the photo, taken at Newton Heath during a recording visit in April 2010? The 180's are notoriously unreliable and the front end design could be good, bad or ugly depending upon your point of view. And the 142's, what can you say? Two Leyland Nationals on train wheels with no suspension. Th
Ding-ding diddle-ing ding ding, ding ding ding ding. I had my head shaved. By a
Jumbo jet. It wasn't easy. But nothing is-eh. The first verse of a tune you've all
heard countless times on the telly; the classic Song 2 by Blur, all of two minutes
long if I recall. And Blur is this week's tenuous connection to my life over the past
few weeks! There's a bit of activity to report as a result.
Firstly, more raw materials have been obtained after another private session at the ELR.
The origin
The last couple of weeks have seen me snowed under literally and metaphorically. I thought the chip workload might have slowed a bit in January but not so as you would notice. It genuinely pleases me to know that my work brings a little pleasure into people's lives. Another enjoyable part of what I'm doing, and one which Paul Chetter and I have often spoken about is the importance of capturing these sounds as an historic record; a part of the nation's heritage. As I've said before it would be ni
A few days off work has, for once, coincided with decent weather so two days of photography was kicked off with my newly-acquired D700 at Elford & Portway on the NE-SW route between Burton and Tamworth. Despite being just down the road I'd never been before. It's a cracking location though, and was pleasantly busy. As well as the usual fare of 170's, Voyagers and HST's I saw two 60's on the Kingsbury tanks, Colas's 56094, two 66's, and a DCR 31 towing another 31 and a 56, all within three ho
I've had to set the Deltic to one side for a while as it was seriously doing my head in! However, one man's loss is another's gain as my time has been temporarily diverted to the recordings of 37901 made at the East Lancs Railway last year. Regular viewers will know this to be a habit of mine, switching from one project to another in order to maintain sanity and enthusiasm. Progress on the slug has been rapid and satisfying. Don't get me wrong, I love the Deltic sounds and they are really good i
I got sidetracked from the usual sound-based activities this morning by a bit of railway photography at Lea Marston. I also managed to fit in some 'real' modelling, having made a start on weathering my rake of BDA's. I spent yesterday morning round at a pal's where we milled the cast lumps off the underside of a Bachmann 20 and a Hornby 56, both in readiness for underframe mounted, downward facing speakers. Tonight's task was to turn Bachmann's clip-on battery box sides for the 20 into a rectang
Orders for an 86 & 87 have prompted some v4 upgrade work to both sound projects. The flexibility of the v4 has enabled some nice features;
Wheelslip if you accelerate hard at slow speeds, neutral section now on a function key, howling rheostatic brakes if you decelerate hard, speed-dependant 'rail noise' and so on. My v3.5 had some of these but they were nowhere near as elegant and responsive. As usual, having a play has yielded new ideas, and led to improvements I'd like to roll out oth
If there's one thing I've learned over the years about railway modelling and photography, it's this; take photos of the boring things as well as the interesting, because one day they won't be boring any more and you'll wish you took more photos of them. This Class 318 is a case in point. Despite living in Ayrshire for 16 years and seeing them almost daily I have only two photos. Now my Bratchell kit has arrived and......I wish I'd taken more photos. I think the same applies to recording sounds.
I can't believe it's so long since my last update, an unfortunate reflection of how busy I've been of late. My missus has been labouring under the misapprehension that DIY and household chores somehow have priority over serious model railway business. She was helping me clean out the loft the other day. All dusty and covered in cobwebs, but she's good to the kids. Actually, she's not been very well lately, she's even had to give up her coal round...
The new Deltic videos, filmed at a friend's 7
The last two or three weeks have been a bit of a blur, with a week's working trip to Norway followed immediately by Warley and then another week away from home on a course. Work is such an inconvenience when you're trying to develop new sound chips :-) As is customary with Warley, everyone left their orders until the last minute so getting them ready whilst in Norway was a bit of a challenge. Fortunately this possibility was forseen and a family member received full training in the use of the Lo
These titles get worse, it took me at least 3 minutes to think that one up. Yes, ped-antics on my workbench this week as my Class 31 project gets its upgrade from v3.5 to v4. Relive the glory days of the Birmingham-Norwich in it's full audio splendour. The photo of such a working dates from Summer 82 and is one of my favourites from that period. Eagle-eyed viewers will note that it's running wrong-line through platform 1 at Nuneaton instead of the more usual 5 going in that direction (towards Le
Sometimes the simplest things can be a whole lot of fun. The 90's have got a really quirky sounding handbrake that operates automatically (via a push-button I think; I didn't see because I was outside recording the sound!). When it's applied the thing clunks and whirrs away quite loudly. When you take it off again the noise is the same but different. So the mind starts thinking, if I could work this feature into the sound project the loco could be realistically parked without shutting it down. A
Kids; here's a tip for when it's your turn to play the 'seeker' in a game of hide and seek. Reduce the time consuming count by saying 'one, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, a hundred' and off you go, job done.
Not really. Play fair, and eat all your greens too.
Yes, it's skip time in the sound lab as the Class 67 gets its v4 upgrade in readiness for the new Hornby model. And this time the model has a chance of sounding half-decent when you fit it because they have finally listened to critic
Take one Hornby 08, add two sugar cube speakers in the nose and the result? Gronk heaven!
Over the past few years I've tried about 6 different combinations of v3.5 chip and speaker (standard & micro chips, 23mm round and micro speakers. In the nose, in the cab etc etc) and have never achieved a sound even approaching acceptability. Having heard the superb sound from the sugar cubes in Paul Chetter's 03 at the LYDCC show, I thought I'll have to try these. They sat in the speaker box for s
Well my 'shoebox' is now trundling around the layout, on diesel power only so far. The poor running was (mostly) sorted by using the CV54 trick and reading the CV's back into the program. I've got basic auxiliary sounds working (horns, compressor, air release etc). Once I've made a bit more progress on these I'll move on to the electric sounds. The last stage I suspect, apart from the usual endless tweaking, will be to program the transitions from diesel to electric and visa versa. I'm quite ple
Things in Legomanbiffo's world have been extremely hectic lately, mainly due to three weeks of training in Manchester and Scotland, punctuated with a day's intensive recording session. The trip to Manchester gave a welcome opportunity for rail travel and photography, with stops at Crewe, Stockport and Manchester Picadilly on the way up. On the return journey I spent some time at the Crewe Heritage Centre with Brian Porter, trying to coax more sounds out of the APT. We had minor sucesses but it w
