Is sound a)essential b) nice to have or c) neither

[Chris M]

Agreed about garden railways. At the far end of my line the locos can only just be heard of you listen very carefully. Even better, but off subject, I can’t see the whole railway from anywhere so trains disappear from view for a while as they trundle round. Sound is helpful in these circumstances as the sounds stops if anything goes wrong while out of site. Also sound is useful for finding bad joints when running dc. I find I can hear a small voltage drop affect the sound while the change in loco speed is not detectable. So rather surprisingly sound is very useful as a maintainance tool for me.

[Torper]

I don't think anybody wants to ban sound from exhibitions, neither does anybody dispute that if people like sound then they're perfectly entitled to that opinion just as sound sceptics are entitled to their opinion. What some people do object to is sound equipped layouts at exhibitions with the sound levels set so as to be annoying to people not viewing that particular layout. That is spoiling the experience for people viewing or exhibiting other layouts or visiting trade stands.

 

I quite agree.  But surely the responsibility is on the exhibition manager or organiser to ensure that layouts keep the sound down to a reasonable level.  To criticise sound in general just because some people abuse it (and are not stopped from doing so) seems to me to be the wrong approach.

 

DT

[Anglian]

fantastic model and a brilliant example of what can be achieved without breaking the sound barrier.

Once again this proves that decibels do not make a good model, but consideration with regard to sound levels makes a great model.

thanks for sharing this with us.

Yours Aye,

Giz

 

 

7mm?

Edited November 17, 2017 by Anglian

[coachmann]

Yes, garden lines would work as would lines with stations in different rooms. Do you switch off the sound when the trains are in the storage yard?

Unlike the scenic section where all tracks are permanently live so that locos can simmer and do what steam locos do when standing, the fiddle yard tracks are isolated by the points and so only one line is 'live' at any given time.  There is no need for locos to make sounds on the fiddle section. They enter an available track and then are isolated. 

[t-b-g]

My own modelling is all in DC with no sound and as I have a stud of kit and scratchbuilt locos that I don't want to start taking apart or altering, I won't be changing any time soon. I do help out on a big DCC layout which has three stations and around 50 locos, of which about 10 have sound chips. We have operating sessions with a number of friends.and we always give people the choice of whether they run with sound or not.

 

Every session goes just the same, We start with sound but it goes off after a few minutes when everybody is fed up of it. Having a loco shed with several locos sitting hissing away is just plain irritating for more than a minute or two! Hearing sounds from the other stations, which are in theory miles away, is also most off-putting. I know you can turn the sound right down so you can't hear it at the next station but then it is so feeble you might as well not bother.

 

So I remain unconvinced. I am too young to remember much steam but on preserved lines and on various recordings I have, there is noise other than the loco going on. Much noise comes from wagons or carriages. Having just the loco noise with none of the rest of the sounds just doesn't seem right to my ears. Some locos, in isolation, sound fine and it is a nice gimmick for a "party piece" but to me, it is no more than that.

[coachmann]

If a number of locos on shed get on peoples nerves, I can't see that adding clanking buffers and the rest of the noises associated with the steam-era is going to help their feeling of irritation.

[jjb1970]

I quite agree.  But surely the responsibility is on the exhibition manager or organiser to ensure that layouts keep the sound down to a reasonable level.  To criticise sound in general just because some people abuse it (and are not stopped from doing so) seems to me to be the wrong approach.

 

DT

Yes and no. Yes, exhibition managers should manage it but people should not need to be told not to set sound levels at a point which is irritating to other exhibitors and people viewing other layouts as it is just basic courtesy to others. When I travel by train I do not expect the conductor to come and tell me not to put my feet on the seats, to collect and dispose of any litter, not use foul language or watch a video using lap top speakers (or excessive headphone volumes which intrude on others) etc as they are all things which people should already be fully aware of and do because they accept that there is a certain way to behave in a shared space. If people do those things (on the generally sound assumption that most passengers prefer to avoid confrontation and so won’t object in public) then yes I’d expect the conductor to ask them to stop (assuming there is a conductor, and that they walk through the train) but I really do not blame the train company for poor behaviour of passengers. Society can only function effectively if it self-polices for the most part and observes norms of acceptable behaviour and observe the law, although exhibition managers have a role I also think it is a sad reflection if they have to intervene.

[Izzy]

Having suffered sound at exhibitions which I found over-intrusive, it is only recently that I have discovered that sound for a home based layout can be a different story when there are not myriad other sounds competing for your attention, but that this only holds good while just one or two locos are 'sounding' at the same time, any more and it just becomes a mixed cacophony of noise as you can experience at a show. Since I only want one or two running at the same time at most this restriction suits me fine.

 

Izzy

[t-b-g]

If a number of locos on shed get on peoples nerves, I can't see that adding clanking buffers and the rest of the noises associated with the steam-era is going to help their feeling of irritation.

 

Agreed completely. Just having loco noises gets irritating. A full on complete sound experience would be worse. 

[Torper]

Yes and no. Yes, exhibition managers should manage it but people should not need to be told not to set sound levels at a point which is irritating to other exhibitors and people viewing other layouts as it is just basic courtesy to others.

 

I agree.  Unfortunately, however, sometimes people do need to be told, and if it is apparent that sound is excessive and causing a nuisance to other exhibitors, than surely the exhibition manager should tell the culprits to turn it down (or be switched off).  If no-one formally complains at the time then there's no wonder that the nuisance continues (people nowadays just don't seem to be as considerate, particularly when it comes to noise, as they used to be).

 

DT

[Neil]

..... Just having loco noises gets irritating. A full on complete sound experience would be worse. 

 

I'm not so sure. At the moment I have my headphones on listening to this on youtube. The volume is turned down low, very low (just a notch above mute) so that I'm just concious of it, all the noises of home are far louder. Because it's not a continuous noise, because it rises and falls and because it's not on an obvious loop it doesn't irritate. I'd like to try something like this, but with (quiet) music fading in and out, like a feature film or tv drama whilst viewing/operating a layout. I'm tempted to speculate that perhaps if dcc sound could have the same non repetitive quality, similarly ebb and flow and be turned down low so that it was just on the edge of one's conciousness then it  might add something rather than detract. I have an idea that even those who think their dcc volume is set low haven't got it low enough. We all know about the scaling of colour, how we have to tone it down for it to appear realistic on a model, I have an idea that we need to do something similar with sound.

 

Then again I may still prefer just the sounds of the city, after all a diesel idling at the stops is pretty irritating in real life.

[coachmann]

The only diesels I never once found irritating were those at the front of buses. A TTS decoder with an idling Leyland TD5 or PD1 would suit me fine in my Corgi's.

Edited November 17, 2017 by coachmann

[Chris M]

The size of the room is important when setting sound for exhibitions. Sound that is barely audible right next to the layout at hall 5 of the NEC is far too loud and oppressive in a school classroom. Both the size of the hall and the density of visitors will have a big effect on how sound is absorbed. This might sound flipping obvious but when you are behind the layout concentrating on operating you don’t always realise.

[Mike Storey]

I don't use sound on my (home) layout for four reasons, all of which bar one have been articulated already on this thread - namely lack of deep bass for steam locos, lack of Doppler effect and lack of change in volume. The fourth is that when I am, for example, sitting at my junction station I don't want to hear sounds from the branch terminus, which is in reality only about six feet away but in my imaginary world would be about twenty miles distant.

 

I think that sound on small layouts, especially as the quality of the actual rendering improves, works well but it doesn't cut it for me on a big layout (unless it is so big, like that of one of my friends, that the trains really go so far away that you can't hear them any more. His railway room is 75 ft x 55 ft).

 

Your friend is one lucky bar steward..... I only have 33ft. x 8ft.

 

But on the Doppler effect, and for trains supposedly miles away in the fiddle yard etc, the fade in/ fade out function on almost all sound chips available since 1874, is the answer to that. More modern contrivances have the F key for that in a more accessible place now, because a lot of the, previously manually operated, function sounds are incorporated automatically in the intelligent drive systems, making "driving" a sound loco so much more pleasurable now (unless you own kettles with non-synchronised puffs. My one James Watt special IOW 02 has a sound chip to die for - it has died, well gone to heaven in File 13). I could not drive my diseasels properly without my noisy friend. My electrical emu's on the other hand, just need a quick pump up and a bit of flange squeal, but are otherwise innocuous.

 

Mis-use, or non-use, of the functions available, resulting in annoyance or in causing boredom, is no excuse under the Law of Sound Chips, as currently constituted in Isle of Sodor case history.

 

Silence is golden only in public libraries, and when yet another new "England" football team might just possibly be about to, or are on the very verge of, or have very possibly set up the chance for, a goal. Or, most importantly, when I am being informed that I still haven't finished painting the spare room.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

The size of the room is important when setting sound for exhibitions. Sound that is barely audible right next to the layout at hall 5 of the NEC is far too loud and oppressive in a school classroom. Both the size of the hall and the density of visitors will have a big effect on how sound is absorbed. This might sound flipping obvious but when you are behind the layout concentrating on operating you don’t always realise.

 

My interest in this thread has been more from the exhibitor's point of view than the viewer's. By that I mean that I totally understand and agree with all the comments made about sound levels, but it seems to me  then that that can come at quite a heavy price in operator concentration.

 

My layout will only have sound in the steam locos (if at all) and there will be 15-20 of them; now back in the day I used the PFM analogue sound system and the volume was controlled from the main unit and by that I mean that it was very easy to adjust the volume of what ever individual loco I wanted to drive at the time I started running it so that I could adapt the volume to suit conditions minute by minute. If one has to adjust each of the 15-20 locos several times during the day as the ambient sound level varies that will just add to operator stress. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just saying that from an exhibition operator's point of view it might be a reason not to have sound at all.

[Legend]

I’ve come to the conclusion that I like the sound of Model trains with no added DCC sound . The swish of a large train as it circles the layout at speed, the clickety clack of the wheels over a Junction or diamond are all very relaxing.

 

That said , I used to love standing at Queen St station in Glasgow and listen to a Sulzer at full pelt as it banked a train up Cowlairs bank. Anything that could emulate that would be pretty nifty.

 

On the whole though, I think I’d rather do without. My pet hate is a sound equipped layout where they seem to have to sound the horn every time before moving off, loud chirping class 20s, and then a short, shutting the whole thing down and everything goes through the start up procedure again

 

Sound has a place, but it’s not for everybody , similar to DCC actually. I always think of the Emperors new clothes , everyone’s got to have it ..........or do they

Edited November 18, 2017 by Legend

[rob D2]

I only have one sound fitted loco and it’s ......OK.

 

It never really seems to get out of idle , but what I really like is the flange squeal, groaning noises of track and the various coupling up stuff. That’s actually better than the engine sounds

[Mike Storey]

I’ve come to the conclusion that I like the sound of Model trains with no added DCC sound . The swish of a large train as it circles the layout at speed, the clickety clack of the wheels over a Junction or diamond are all very relaxing.

 

That said , I used to love standing at Queen St station in Glasgow and listen to a Sulzer at full pelt as it banked a train up Cowlairs bank. Anything that could emulate that would be pretty nifty.

 

On the whole though, I think I’d rather do without. My pet hate is a sound equipped layout where they seem to have to sound the horn every time before moving off, loud chirping class 20s, and then a short, shutting the whole thing down and everything goes through the start up procedure again

 

Sound has a place, but it’s not for everybody , similar to DCC actually. I always think of the Emperors new clothes , everyone’s got to have it ..........or do they

 

But the Emperor was actually nearly naked. Everyone just imagined he had some fantastic clothes. So, you either imagine his clothes, or you try to create some real ones. And that is perhaps, the greater point....?

[t-b-g]

Spent the day at Wakefield show today. Why do people have the one loco running on the layout, with sound, drowned out by the 8 in the fiddle yard with the sound on? Too lazy to switch them off? Perhaps it is so they don't get unsuitable sounds from the other sound fitted layouts above the noise of theirs. The whole hall just echoed to the good old class 20/40 whistle, which is quite off putting when you are looking at something Scottish and pre-grouping.

 

I would ban sound on any layout which has a volume that can be heard by somebody watching the next layout along. That way people can choose to avoid it if they so wish, instead of it being inflicted constantly on those who don't enjoy it.

 

Rant over!

[298]

I would say sound works well for diesel and electric traction where, particularly with recent builds exhaust emissions are negligible.

 

 

Emissions from Electrics have always been negligible, unless you count the oil powered steam generators on some locos or coal stoves on some early Interurban cars....

 

Also, and this where sound fitted locos sort of fall down is that they highlight "what isn't there" .. wheel noise on rails, doors slamming, voices, road traffic sounds, weather and environmental noise (rain, wind, streams and rivers, livestock or animal calls  etc)... I'm sure there are many other incidental noise sources that spring to mind.

Trolley stop bell, door noise, compressor, generator, trolley pole, flange squeal, speed readout- from memory all on a factory fitted sound chip. What is really missing is "Tinplate rattle", a sound often heard at shows as you can't have a coarse scale O gauge display without four loops all running badly engineered trains at a scale two miles a minute. It might have been the dream of every baby boomer, but I bet parents in the 1950s were glad they couldn't afford the luxuries that their offspring craved as the noise coming from an oval upstairs must have sounded like a Tornado taking the tiles off the roof. I had to endure that all day at a show once, the noise only broken every hour by a full size Deltic on a service train outside, and if I'd known I would have taken earplugs...

[MJI]

I accidentally upset the owner of a Hornby Castle on Saturday, I said it didn't sound like one.

 

What I didn't say was that is was barely better than the old Hornby sandpaper thingy.

[JDW]

I have to say I admire the technological aspect, the ability to "do" sound, to fit speakers in tiny spaces, make it synchronise, and so on.  But I hate listening to it.  As people have said above, it's usually too loud, often more of a novelty toy (how many times do you need to sound the horn?), and generally irritating once the novelty wears off - I like modern layouts, but spend way less time at exhibitions in front of ones which are full of a shed full of locos "ticking over" making loud chirping noises that add little to my enjoyment and quickly become a tiresome and intrusive background noise.  

[coachmann]

As a dedicated DCC sound user, I spent half an hour in the shed this morning watching and listening to a Dean Goods pottering around. Say what you like; it's more realistic than no sound!

[t-b-g]

As a dedicated DCC sound user, I spent half an hour in the shed this morning watching and listening to a Dean Goods pottering around. Say what you like; it's more realistic than no sound!

 

I spent an evening "playing trains" too. The sounds in my mind were massively more realistic than anything DCC can offer and I wasn't distracted by having tinny little chuffing and hissing noises coming from the loco.

 

I actually like the sound of a sweet running model loco, gliding along with its train. I spend ages getting my locos to run as quietly as possible when I build them. Even on Buckingham, which has quite noisy locos, each one has a character and regular operators can tell what loco is coming from the noise it makes and knows how to set the controller accordingly as they all behave differently. 

 

I had the opportunity today to listen to one of the old "Transacord" steam sound records, played on a high quality sound system.

 

If those sounds could be manipulated digitally, so that the model railway runs with those sounds "in sync" then we might actually start to get somewhere in recreating what a real railway sounded like..... but! The problem is that I listened to it with the sound turned up to a level that, if it was on a layout, would be far too intrusive.

 

Perhaps sound just doesn't "scale" very well. Our ears and brains are the same whether we are listening to a Princess accelerating out of Euston or the latest offering from Bachmann and my ears don't make a very kind comparison when I hear the sounds on a model, which are either too loud or pathetic but never right. But I am happy to accept that others have different views.

 

The thing with this subject, like ones such as layout heights, are that there is no right or wrong. Just different views and opinions.

[Kubes]

I have a sound equipped loco on my 16mm garden line. To be honest I usually switch the engine noise off but I do really like to be able to sound the horn when moving off or at other operationally appropriate times. I would happily fit whistle or horn sounds on my 7mm stuff but I couldn't bear the artificial loco noises.

Kubes