legomanbiffo

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 the Lokprogrammer v4 software from day one. All I had to do was double some of my numbers and problem solved - for the 67 at least. I then had to go back to every other project I've updated to v4 standards (20+), change all the numbers and test each one again. Needless to say this took me some time and I was not a happy bunny. The arrival of my 350 has seen a temporary diversion to tweak all of the settings to suit the model. This has taken a couple of days on & off but now things are pretty much how I want them to be. The extra room in the v4 chip has enabled me to include a couple of on-board announcements (one long one for an 'all-stations' service, and another shorter one for a 'limited stop' service). I've set the volume of these fairly low so they sound as if heard through the open doors when passengers are getting on and off. A speaker has been fitted in the large battery box under the driving vehicle next to the motorised car. The sound is now better but the plan is do an identical fit in the other half of the train with a second chip and speaker. On a 3-car unit you can just about get away with a single chip and two speakers (one in the first and one in the third carriage) but with a four-car unit that's stretching it too much. Once I've done this and weathered the underfame I'll post a video. I'll get back to that skip one day...

I wasn't planning to go to the Worcester show but the draw of a sunny day and the newly released London Midland 350 proved too much to resist. The show was only in one hall but there was a varied selection of quality layouts, a good cross-section of traders and plenty of second hand stuff. All in all most impressive. Sadly no rail blue Lima 73's (everything but in fact) so I settled for an NSE example to do the forthcoming video. The 350 is a lovely model but as usual the chip and speaker fit appear to be a complete afterthought. Just out of interest I fitted chip and speaker as Bachmann intended and the sound is truly awful in comparison to my test-bed (which can be seen on You Tube). It would have cost Bachmann virtually nothing to match this had they paid due regard to sound at the outset but no. I was hoping to post a video of the newly-upgraded v4 sound project but I now need to do some work on the speaker fit before that will be possible. The day was rounded off nicely with a heads up from my pal Mark which produced the snap on the left. Unusually, the pair came around the corner quite slowly and, as if on cue, opened up in front of me. Excellent.

How long back do you think you would have to go to have seen a 60, followed by a 56, followed by a 37, going up the Lickey in the space of 15 minutes? 5 years, 10 years? Try two days! Many thanks to my pal Mark for alerting me to that one. It's a shame the weather wasn't great for pictures but the trip was worth it just for the listening pleasure. In the sound lab the 73 is just about finished and about to be 'beta tested'. As with the real thing you can switch between diesel and electric on the hoof. A moment of inspiration led me to full user-control of the two-speed exhauster using a single function key. That will have to be retro-fitted to the 33 project...more work! As usual the project features all the usual v4 goodies including different horns, doors and buffer clash in either direction, variable speed flange squeal etc Looking ahead I think I've settled on the 67 as the next project for the v4 treatment, in readiness for the upgraded Hornby model. I've been reviewing my source material (recorded at Bounds Green) and there's some good stuff in there including a failed start, compressor speed-up etc, all good v4 fare.

I'm pleased to say that the Glasgow show was better than last year's, which was hopefully just a blip in the year-on-year improvement. Well done to all concerned. As usual it was great to meet up with old friends, and put some faces to new ones. Deviations on the way up included photting at Winwick Junction and Carlisle, and on the way back, Tower Models followed by fish & chips on the front at Blackpool! Back in the sound lab the 73 diesel / electric transitions have been sorted out after some persistent misbehaviour by the programming (ie it wasn't doing what I told it to do. 'Gauny no dae that' was very apt at the time). Now it's just a case of gilding the lily with a second set of horns etc just to finish off. As with the 20 the video is going to be a little while yet as I really want a banger blue loco to feature, and extensive searches at Glasgow failed to turn one up despite the vast array of second hand stuff on offer. Thoughts are beginning to turn to which sound project will be the next to benefit from the upgrade to v4. Current favourites are the Voyager (though this will involve swapping out the four 100 ohm speakers for 8 ohm ones) or the Eurostar (into which I could fit the huge 28x40 speakers from Alan Butcher).

Having tiled everything tile-able on the layout in between reloads, I've now got the ED to the point where I'm happy with the diesel flowchart, the electric flowchart and all the auxiliaries (compressor, horns etc). Next comes the tricky bit; how to program the changeover from diesel to electric and visa-versa, whilst maintaining authenticity and staying within the technical constraints of the chip. I'm not anticipating this to take too long but the annual sojourn to Model Rail Scotland is going to intervene. All being well I'll be picking up a banger blue Lima 73 while I'm there. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible...

Developing sounds for the Loksound v4 chip involves periods of tweaks & adjustments to the various flowcharts followed by a 15 minute wait whilst the chip loads. You then check that the loco does what you want (which invariably it doesn't without further tweaking, but I digress). Those 15 minutes are usefully spent doing real modelling, and today I've been roofing an old woollen mill with some laser-cut slate roofing tiles from York Model Making. The mill itself is a Walthers 'Background Building' but the roof looked a bit flat so I picked up some of the slates at Doncaster last week and set to work. The tiles come in self-adhesive strips. It's not a quick job to put them on but in an hour or so I've done one side whilst ascending the learning curve. I distressed the odd tile here and there with knicks out of corners and bits missing and it all looks great. Definitely easier than putting them all on individually. Life is waaay too short for that. Meantime the 73 electric sounds are coming along nicely, and doing what I want most of the time. If anyone has experience of 73's running on the juice I'd be pleased to hear from you and perhaps pick your brains so I can get things just right.

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 pleased so far anyway.

I had an enjoyable day out at Doncaster yesterday and succumbed to the persuasive powers of a superbly weathered Bachmann 37/5 in Railfreight Metals livery from 'Dirty Boy' / Lord & Butler. Whilst I am reasonably skilled at weathering, this was in a different league and I was happy to pay the money. As a bonus the loco came pre-fitted with the latest SWD v4 chip so it was a good opportunity to listen to the competition. After trying it 'out of the box' it was clear that the dire speaker fit by Bachmann was seriously letting it down so as an experiment I took my v4 chip and tried it with Bachmann's speaker fit, and put SWD's chip in my loco with my tank-mounted Alan Butcher bass-reflex speaker. The improvement to the SWD sound when put through a proper speaker fit was truly astonishing. And of course the converse was true; the degradation to my chip when played through the Bachmann speaker was equally astonishing. The moral of the story is, regardless of who's chip you use, it pays to improve your speaker and speaker fit. In other news my 73 now has an Alan Butcher 28x40 speaker and v4 chip in. Early experiments served only to reveal the shortcomings of the new Hornby motor. Mind you, it's brand new and hasn't been run in yet so this may improve. When I'm finished playing with the 37's I'll put some effort into developing the 73 sound project. One aspect I'm giving some thought to is just how to give the user control of the change from diesel to electric power and visa-versa. I'd be interested to hear from any 73 drivers on what can and can't be done, and what sounds happen when etc, so I can get everything just right.

I've just had a really enjoyable weekend in the company of the Airthey Park & Warren Lane crews who were kind enough to let me join them on the other side of the 'stage' and then socially afterwards. Experience of driving my sound-fitted locos in an exhibition environment allows me to optimise the chips for exhibitor's needs as well as everyone else's, so public thanks to everyone concerned. Apologies to Alan for driving my 86's into a non-electrified road on Warren Lane - doah! With the 20 completed, the Class 26 project is now back on the workbench. This was an early v4 beneficiary which is now being upgraded in the light of experience gained in recent weeks with other projects. The main thrust of the work is to add two more 'thrash from stationary' options, and to reduce response time if the throttle is re-opened whilst the loco is still spooling down. The 26 shouldn't take too long and I'm wondering what should replace it on the workbench. The 73 is a possibility, also the 156 which is a hot topic over on the DEMU forum just now. I've also got a steadily increasing list of minor tweaks to existing projects which need addressing and a number of recording leads to follow up from Stafford.

My Bachmann 20 is largely finished and I had hoped to make a couple of videos over the weekend but unfortunately real life intervened and no progress was made. You wouldn't believe how challenging it is to find 'quiet' time in an urban & family environment - there is always something 'noisy' going on. Not noisy so you would notice necessarily but the mic picks everything up so I like to film in an empty house where possible, and it hasn't been lately. The time hasn't been wasted though, as my double-headed rats have been upgraded from v3.5 / 100 ohm speakers to v4 / 8 ohm. They are seriously loud. There are still a few tweaks I need to make to the project before I'm completely happy but not too many. As things stand the 20 & 25's are likely to make their public debut on Airthey Park at Stafford show at the weekend (thanks guys) instead of You Tube. I'll be there both days and happy to discuss sound with anyone.

It's all gone quiet while I get my Bachmann 20 ready for its video debut. Star of the show will be the disc-fitted 20058, currently on the workbench getting the faded rail blue treatment to depict a loco in the last years of its life. I can't decide whether to team it up with the completed OTA rake or the 3 BDA's I've finished so far. This afternoon was spent hopping between the 20 itself and making steel billets for the BDA's. These are made from lead flashing sprayed first with red oxide primer and then given a dusting of track colour. I'm quite pleased with the just-starting-to-rust look that this produces. Great track from the Strangler's Black & White album don't you think?

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 photography near Harpenden on the way back. Two hours in the freezing cold in a muddy field were richly rewarded by some great snaps and the sight of an NR 73 going full chat on diesel power! I picked up a chip at the show to go into the newly milled 20 and this was fitted on Sunday morning. The improvement gain from having the speaker in the underframe was worthwhile, but only just. There is clearly more bass there but not a huge amount more. Up to now the 20 sound project has been workshopped in my 26 which has the Alan Butcher 28x40 speaker in, so coming back down to earth with a 23mm round (the only thing that would fit into the 20) was somewhat deflating. I also picked up another BDA at St Albans making the rake up to 6 so far. The first one to be upgraded is just about finished, I'll post a photo next time if I remember. How long do you think before I gash my hand on the rigid brass stanchions? I feel a Railfreight Metals 37 coming on... Bif

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 rectangular speaker enclosure with a 23mm round speaker. Tomorrow I shall mostly be at St Albans show and taking photos on the MML.

The Class 20's do a nice little hiss when the reverser is operated, and a slightly longer one when the driver puts his foot on the deadman. We captured these when we did the recordings at the GCR so today's 20 minute task was to add these to the project. Needless to say things didn't go quite to plan. No hiss on reversing and no deadman sound, in fact the loco just sat there idling and refused to move. I'd got this feature working fine on the 118 dmu so I knew it worked. Most of the time if you get something wrong in the flowchart it tells you but not this time. It took about two hours to get to the bottom of it, I guess that's what they call experience. Trouble is, next time it happens I will have forgotten how to fix it... Anyway, reverser and deadman hiss now working fine.

I finished creating / extracting the Class 20 engine sound clips this morning. In-between 'real' modelling I spent the rest of the day tweaking the flowchart to get the engine sounds driving how I want them. I'm probably about 90% of the way there with that, and fed up listening to just engine sounds so I added all the previously created 'auxiliary' sounds (horns, air sounds, door slams etc) to see how it all worked as a package. Probably another two or three days tweaking to go and version 1 will be ready. Not sure what to do about a target loco for the video. I've got an early Bachmann (20052) but I don't know if it's the model I want to run with. The speaker certainly won't be as good as the test-bed 26 I'm running the sound in just now.

I did more work extracting the Class 20 engine sound clips last night. For a good v4 project you have to create approximately twice as many discrete clips compared to v3.5 so it's quite time consuming, but the improved responsiveness and all-round play value is definitely worth it.

I decided that a blog of what I'm up to sound-wise at the moment might be of interest and also provide a useful forum for discussion and feedback. Here's what I've been up to in the last few weeks. Imagine a butterfly flitting from one thing to another and you won't be too far off the mark :-) Upgraded the 26, 27, 37/0 and 37/4 projects with 'multi-start' (user control of engine priming, cranking and starting (or not starting)). It's my intention to add this to all projects where appropriate and where I have the necessary recordings. 'True' warm and cold starts are another aim but they eat up a lot of memory. Changed the 37 spirax function from a single loop to set of shorter sounds that are played at random. The original loop was quite long but you could still detect when it was starting again. I plan to develop this further so that if the spirax is left on for ages, the gap between pops will steadily increase just like the real thing. Made the 37 compressor stop more quickly when the function is turned off. Again, an improvement that'll be made to all v4 projects in due course. Finally started work editing the engine sounds from the Class 20 that pauliebanger and I recorded at the GCR ages ago (20098). This will be a great project when it's finished as we captured loads of material but I keep getting sidetracked with other stuff (which I suspect will be a common theme in this thread...). The 'auxiliaries' are all done, only the engine sounds are needed to finish the project off. Had a preliminary play with the Class 73 engine sounds I recorded at the Spa Valley Railway. A completed project is a while away yet but the 73 that arrived from Hattons today might spur me on. I was surprised how deep the engine note is on a 73. Made a start upgrading the 87 to v4 standards and incorporating some new material recorded at Willesden by a pal of mine. Made changes to the neutral section which will be user-triggerable at any speed. Finally, got some great sound-related feedback from one of the fitters at the Battlefield Line today (where I'm a volunteer). Most interesting was how the engine rpm on a 33 is affected when the ETH is on. A bit more complex than you might think and definitely something that can be incorporated into the project. I'm envisioning an 'ETH on/off' function key that will invoke the various changes. Again, something that will need to be added to various projects where appropriate. Bif

The man that is bored of his train sounds is bored of life :-) Seriously though, I agree with the sentiment of someone on here who says 'a loco without sound, it may as well not be painted'. Sound is a hugely characteristic part of any given loco, steam, diesel or electric and if you don't model it you're not capturing the full picture. I think it's important to stress the word 'model' in that sentence too. I model in sound. It's a skill just like soldering, ballasting and weathering, and like them can be mastered by application.

I'm flattered to be referred to as one of the big players, you're too kind :-) I'd be happy to go and record one and produce a chip if anyone has access or a contact. Anywhere, anytime, just let me know. Bif

EMU sound chips have been conspicous by their absence until very recently. Some time ago I decided to set about recording as many as possible. For starters here is Bratchell's superb Class 320 in Strathclyde orange (there are 3 videos demonstrating the various sounds, this is the second one); http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef38X15pFfQ&feature=related I'm happy to reblow chips for anyone who's interested in these sounds, which would be suitable for any unit from the BREL 320 / 321 / 322 series. The following are 'coming soon' as I work my way through them; 323, 350 Desiro, 442 Gatwick Express, 507 & 508. As with the 320, all sounds were made during authorised depot visits and each project will feature a full set of completely authentic sounds including pan up / down, air conditioning packs, auxiliary & main compressors, doors, right away, 'playable' horns etc etc. The majority of recordings are in place for the 313, 314, 317, 318, 319, & 325 which will follow the first batch. Finally, steps are in place to secure recordings of the 465 Networker and others. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank London Midland (Soho & King's Heath), Railcare (Wolverton) and Merseyrail (Birkenhead North) for their help with this 'quest'.

I am under the suspicions that most of the samples are taken with the loco operating in a mode known as “engine onlyâ€. This allows the power unit to accelerate up to full speed without developing traction power. The result will be a very quick take up of revs and the volume will be reduced significantly. If you open a loco up in engine only, it will throttle the fuel up to raise the engine up to full speed, this will give an initial burst of volume as the unit gets itself up to speed, once it has reached its full speed, it will require very little fuel to keep it at full revs and the engine governor will have closed the fuel down to just enough as required. If a loco is on a load, I.E a heavy train, then the power controller will be opened up the engine will start to accelerate to max revs but the load of the generator will stop it doing so, the governor will put more fuel on to get to this position thus a bigger explosion in the cylinders, and more volume. Most of the recordings I have herd appear to have been made with the loco in engine only, of cause this is much more convenient because the loco is stationary. So all you producers of sound chips take note, any body interested in a spot of loadbank testing?. You are correct in your assertions about 'engine only' operation. I always aim to record a 'line run' (ideally from the cab) or with the engine otherwise 'under load'. I recorded the running sounds on my Eurostar out of the cab door on a (surprisingly low speed) run in the depot. The 56 was recorded during a load bank test, where the engine's electric generator is disconnected from the traction motors and connected to an external resistive load. At Tyseley I recorded a 150 & 170 on their 'dyno', where they disconnect the engine drive shafts and connect them to a huge water pump which acts as a load. Realism can be considerably enhanced (or thrown away) by having appropriate (or inappropriate) acceleration and deceleration CV settings. How many commercial sound chips have you seen where the loco shoots off and the sound 'catches up' some time later? You can also enhance things by judicious allocation of sounds to the slots in the Loksound flowchart, and by limiting top speeds in the example of heavy freight locos. You can see some of my results here; http://www.youtube.com/user/legomanbiffo I'm happy to 'reblow' chips if anyone is interested.

Alan, I like your 3D sound. How convincing is the effect in reality; is it sufficiently good to trick the mind into thinking the sound is really coming from the loco - I've always wondered? And how many speakers have you fitted? I guess one disadvantage is that the sound only works on your own layout. Thanks for showing us another way of achieving similar ends. Bif

Many thanks for that Martin. I had to think about your question for a minute. I've been 'Lokprogramming' for about 4 years and doing my own recording for about 3 & a half. Commercial projects from the major manufacturers often seem to have inappropriate inertia settings. The loco's typically weigh 60-100 tons; even light engine they don't accelerate as fast as some of the projects you see. My default acceleration CV setting is somewhere around 60 for big diesels or around 50 for modern units. Deceleration needs to be a bit lower to avoid overshoots and accidents, somewhere between 20 and 35. The settings are easily altered, even if you don't have a lokprogrammer. Bass reflex speakers work very well. The hole isn't just a hole. Sitting behind it is a tuned pipe (like an organ pipe) that is designed to resonate at lower frequencies and enhance the bass response. When experimenting with my own reflex enclosures I found that the increase in bass response was modest but the increase in volume was huge. I need to work on the voyager project and / or speakers though, the engines sound much more harsh than the mellow sounding prototype.

A two-chip / four speaker voyager. There's a fairly comprehensive on the You Tube page. Recorded by myself at Central Rivers. The use of the underframes as bass reflex enclosures gives mountains of volume (it's deafening on full) but even with internal wadding it sounds harsh, unlike the mellow note of the prototype. I need to do a bit more work on this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XYzDkLFzhQ

Eurostar start-up... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nu9L6Sy99A& ...and shutdown http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19neSrCp1ys&feature=channel