43078shildoncountydurham Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 Hi rmweb, what do you all think about this? Are we going down the correct road with sound/small speakers in 00 gauge locos or should we be looking at a Hi fi type system in and around our layout? Surely Howes, southwest digital and the other people's great work would sound even better this way? Many thanks in advance for everyones input Craig Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
two tone green Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 You may be interested in this. http://www.freiwald.com/pages/sound.htm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cassey jones Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Its fine with the odd loco, but problems start when having multiples of loco's, - unless you have continous speakers running along the lay out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Are we going down the correct road with sound/small speakers in 00 gauge locos or should we be looking at a Hi fi type system in and around our layout? When looking at audio reproduction, tiny speakers in locos and little amplifiers are not going to produce brilliant HiFi sound. What comes out of model locomotives is remarkably good, but nothing beats lots of watts in an amplifier driving a decent size of speaker. There are people offering commercial systems which will run sound through speakers in the layout; Freiwald as mentioned, Soundtraxx with their SurroundTraxx system, and there are many others. BUT, there is a problem. If the sound is through the layout, then the sound system needs to know the position and behaviour of the locos in order to play sound in the right place, and to play the correct sounds. The location of locomotives requires detectors around the layout to deterimine the positions. That's a lot of detectors, wiring, circuit boards to integrate the information. There are firms offering equipment which does this, but its another layer of wiring complexity and expenditure which most modellers won't welcome. Behaviour of locos is even more complex; anything with coupling rods will be impossible to synchronised the noises with the sound system, whereas its relatively simple for a loco-mounted sound DCC chip to play chuffs in time with the wheel and rod movement. Diesel locos (excluding diesel-mechanical locos) are simpler, the diesel engine noises in the prototype are not tightly linked to the movement of the locomotive, instead there is a lag between increasing the load (and noise) in the diesel motor and that appearing as power through the electric traction motors, and as such a layout based sound system for diesel-electrics doesn't have as many problems with noises tied to movement, though some problems still remain as noises do change when a loco shifts from stationary to moving. For steam and diesel mechanicals, one ends up proposing a different control system, where behaviour of the locomotive is in full communication with the central sound components - either an entire additional pile of (new not yet designed*) electronics piggybacking onto DCC, or forget DCC and start again. (* hypothetical simple/cheap mechanism; on the speaker output of the DCC sound decoder fit a small FM transmitter. Place an FM receiver at layout track side, attached to amp and speakers. Result, big speaker sound synchronised with loco movement. Just need to sort out the position stuff to make it work really well. Will only run a few locos at a time due to available FM frequencies, will suffer break-in from any pirate radio station in the locality, etc..). There are a couple of chaps experimenting with a different mechanism, using analogue track control of locos and simultaneously sending audio from a central control & sound source to the loco. By this method, they can also divert some of the audio to bigger track-side speakers and keep it (largely) synchronised with loco movement. They've shown diesels, I suspect that matching steam rod movement will remain a challenge for them. The system is decidedly not DCC, I don't think those working on it have revealed how their stuff actually works (I've could make a guess). There is further information on another sub-part of RMWeb, the RMWeb moderators have said it is not a topic to discuss in detail within the DCC arena. One day, someone will replace DCC with something better. That's likely to have full two-way communication between loco and control system. But any change takes time. DCC is 19 years old, control systems change very slowly in model railways. Surely Howes, southwest digital and the other people's great work would sound even better this way? The better of the current DCC sound writers will optimise their sound files for the small speakers and amplifiers used in model locomotives. If you were to play the audio through a really good set of speakers, the sound would be less than ideal because certain sound frequencies have been cut or boosted to optimise for the small speakers found inside a locomotive. Obviously if there were options to play through better speakers then that might change. - Nigel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted August 14, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 14, 2012 Many years ago when I put sound on Mostyn, we used Phil Suttons Mac (iirc) which had 4 speakers, with sounds I'd found on the internet and documented, the idea of this was to make the sound "low-tech", the human operator drove the trains according to the sound, so (the most popular one) for example I found a clip which had a 47 coasting and the suddenly opening up wide and accelerating away, on the layout the operator drove the 47 hauled up express slowly onto the layout for 27seconds (iirc), clearing the up outer home but maintaining all the other up signals at danger and then at 28 seconds, cleared all the up signals, and accelerated the train, this coincided with the 47 acclerating on the sound clip - the effect was superb (though I modestly say so myself) and played through the bass speakers of the sound system gave real feeling (literally, at Wells the floor vibrated !) to a train accelerating away from a signal check. Not all solutions need to be high tech - find some sound clips, document them, and drive the trains to match the sounds played through a reasonable system with extra speakers - simples. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigd Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Perhaps a hybrid solution could be developed, where the higher frequencys are conming from the loco, and the lower frequencys from big sub woofers hidden round the circuit. As most direction infromation is picked up by the ears from the higher frequencys it should work well. I have no idea how that could be implemented though! The thought of a OO Deltic opening up on a layout, and the sound hitting you in the feet and chest (like the prototype!) would bring sound to a different level. I suspect the neighbour may not be too happy though! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 I quite often play steam sounds from the old Transacord recordings on a basic hi fi set up by the layout, much as described by Beast on Mostyn above, making appropriate train movement for what's on the recording segment. For those who haven't tried it, you may be surprised by what happens: perfect synching is not required for viewing a general scene. Light is effectively instantaneous, sound plods along at 330m/s, light is direct path, sound is multipath. Our brain is accustomed to doing the processing to marry the two (which is how ventriloquists make a living) and will do so provided that the physical movement has general coherence with the audio image. Playing a sound decoder recording through decent audio gear will reveal exactly what Nigel referred to above. Something I have idly thought about is enquiring whether the original recordings might be compiled and made available at CD or SACD standard. Both the mighty drone and the class 105 DMU would float my boat... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc smith Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Perhaps a hybrid solution could be developed, where the higher frequencys are conming from the loco, and the lower frequencys from big sub woofers hidden round the circuit. As most direction infromation is picked up by the ears from the higher frequencys it should work well. I have no idea how that could be implemented though! The thought of a OO Deltic opening up on a layout, and the sound hitting you in the feet and chest (like the prototype!) would bring sound to a different level. I suspect the neighbour may not be too happy though! I've often had such thoughts myself ... although I'd prefer the sound of a heavily laden 37, struggling and growling its way up an incline Bass frequencies are more omni-directional, and so you should almost "feel" those lower tones.... several bass speakers, placed around the layout could work but I wonder about the logistics of it all Would we be able to get the speakers to respond to each separate loco decoder? On the fabulous "Worcester Road" gauge 1 layout, Steve simply has recordings of Hydraulic locomotives, which he fades in & out, as engines arrive / leave the depot A simple, but highly effective and low-cost method!!! I have to say, it really worked well at Stormex last year.... In addition to loco sounds, I find that other ambient sounds can really lend something to the atmosphere of a layout I myself play sound effects of birdsong, cows moo-ing, the odd car door slamming, or tooting its horn These were downloaded, free of charge from the internet, and edited in windows movie maker (free with windows) Played on a cd player or MP3 player, via some cheap PC speakers, it makes a virtually free, atmospheric addition to my layouts... Altohugh I think the constant twitter of birds eventually "got" to some of the other exhibitors at this years Lord & Butlers' fathers day show Cheers Marc Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Oldddudders Posted August 14, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 14, 2012 I think this website might have some ideas in this general area. http://www.fantasonics.com/store/store.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium DLT Posted August 14, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted August 14, 2012 Many years ago when I put sound on Mostyn, ..... - the effect was superb (though I modestly say so myself) and played through the bass speakers of the sound system gave real feeling (literally, at Wells the floor vibrated !) to a train accelerating away from a signal check. I remember watching (and feeling!) Mostyn at Wells, one of the few times I've been really impressed by layout sound. Dave. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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