Zimo chuffs for articulated locos such as Garratt

[John YouChoos]

If you want DCC sound in your Garratt, or other similar dual-engined steamer, this is possible using Zimo sound decoders by setting CV 268 to a special value of 192.  Those clever people at Zimo provided this feature especially to create a pseudo-dual-engined chuff sound, using the same chuff samples, but slightly offsetting their playback so that it gives the illusion of there being 2 engines.  This trick works fantastically well!

 

Thought I'd post this up here as a useful snippet of information, and for anyone who already has a YouChoos Garratt Zimo sound decoder, you may want to check your setting for CV 268, as some of my early Garratt decoders did not take advantage of the trick.

 

Enjoy!

John

 

[steveNCB7754]

Duly noted and filed away -  thanks.

 

Presumably the two chuff 'instances' remain fixed (rather like an echo) and do not go in and out of synchronisation as on a real Garratt (see earlier thread here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/91864-garrett-sound/)?

 

 

Steve N

[John YouChoos]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your notes in the other Garratt thread - very interesting reading, and perfectly logical - after all, why would they go in sync - there's nothing physical to make it happen?!

In fact the Zimo feature appears to have enough randomness in it that they stay distinct - I'm not sure if it is an illusion or not, but the gap between fore-chuff and rear-chuff are not maintained, so it really does sound like two totally independent engines each running at slightly different rates - very effective.

Cheers, John

[steveNCB7754]

Hi John,

 

Garratts are an interest of mine and I hope to work at least one into a layout at some point, so its good to know that a reasonable approximation of one (sound-wise) is possible with just one Zimo decoder.

 

Cheers, Steve N