legomanbiffo

I believe they are made by CT Electronik. I got mine from Digitrains (link below), I've told Charlie to get some in as well. http://www.digitrains.co.uk/ecommerce/search/mini-oblong-speaker.aspx

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 six months but today I got round to fitting them, along with a standard v4 chip. To say they are impressive is a complete understatement. I put two 8 ohm ones in parallel, in the nose, behind the grille which is acoustically transparent. The resulting volume is around twice that of any of any other fit I've tried and more than adequate. In fact the engine sound volume had to be turned down a bit to match the level of the other sounds. Mounting them was a piece of cake, I simply stuck each one using a dod of black-tac on the front of the motor assembly, one above the other. It doesn't seem to matter if they are touching anything around them, in fact they are pushed tightly up against the nose when the body is put back on. Still a bit of work to go before the v4 sound project is released on an unsuspecting public but I'm really pleased with progress after trying for so long.

Jeff / Paul, I have made a start on a table detailing my recommended speaker fit for each class of loco or unit. The aim is to have this on a website in the fullness of time. It will also be added to the 'helpsheet' for my range of chips. The helpsheet is here; www.dckits-devideos.co.uk/doc/6.doc

Paul, The v4 31 has been out for ages but I don't have a model, hence no video yet. It's up to the usual standards of course. Bif

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. Their only redeeming feature is that they're full of character! Anyway, the reason for this interlude is that I've been bringing the 142 project into the 21st Century in readiness for Charlie & Arran's long-awaited model. It's coming along quite nicely (the sound project that is, you'll have to ask Charlie about the model). Thanks to Mick Bryan who took the photograph on the day (and another 20Gb of them for reference!).

Jeff, You can buy new chips with my sounds on from DC Kits. I also offer a reblow service direct (ie not via DC Kits). I'll send you a full list but most of them can be seen here; http://www.youtube.com/user/legomanbiffo/videos The sounds are available on Micro, standard or XL chips, so yes 7mm is not a problem. Bif

I think the noise you're referring to comes from the spirax valves which purge moisture from the braking system. All of my diesel sound projects have that on a function key so you can turn it on or off as required (it fades in slowly, continues for as long as the function is on, and then fades out when you turn it off). The horn when moving off is not automatic. The driver blows the horn when moving off to signal to anyone who may need to know, that the loco is starting to move (eg people working on the track, who should acknowledge by raising their arm). It's probably in the 'rule book'. It is not automatic on my sound projects, you blow the horn(s) if you choose to.

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. An evening of fiddling later and it works a treat. You can leave the loco to its own devices and use F1 as normal, the handbrake then comes off and goes on appropriately at start-up and shutdown (but not when standing at signals etc). You can also manually take it off at a time of your choosing after pan-up, and you can also apply it (and remove it) manually whenever the loco is stationary. I've had great fun getting it to work just how I wanted it, and control is simple and reliable. I suspect this will become a feature of all locos where I've got the appropriate recordings. I've got the video camera in the house so if I get time over the weekend I'll post a clip of it on my You Tube channel. The photo was taken at Coventry on the 1st May 2009. First Scotrail liveried 90019 pushes a scratch set of Virgin stock towards London whilst substituting for the Pendolino that crashed at Grayrigg if my memory serves me right. I also think this stock may have ended up as the 'Pretendalino'?

Very nice Paul, great work.

There's a title to attract the attention of any male over a certain age! Well, here's something else that is electric and blue; 90012, posing for the camera during the recording session at Crown Point. I took the opportunity to grab a full set of underframe shots which I'll post if anyone is interested. On Saturday I spent a really enjoyable half-hour talking to Phil Tyrer (aka Northendboy) at members day and he commented afterwards about being envious of some of the places I'd been whilst recording. I hadn't really thought about it before but it's true, I have had some fantastic days out that would never have happened otherwise. Having said that, when you're in that cab or at that depot you've generally spent a lot of time & money getting there and you can't just sit back and enjoy it, you have to focus on the job in hand. These days I like to arrive for a recording session bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and in good time and that often involves travelling to site the day before and staying overnight. This was the case here with Norwich being three and a half hours drive away. In the four years I've been recording seriously the highlights have been; the brake van ride behind the 37 after the session at the Spa Valley, two visits to record Eurostars at Temple Mills, riding all day in the cab of the 20 at the GCR, and having the 40, 50 & Deltic to ourselves for the day at the ELR! Happy days. The v4 90 is nearing completion. I've just been doing two sets of horns, one for each end. Bif

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. EMU's and DMU's might not be very glamorous but there are loads of them about and interest in them is definitely on the rise. I love them and never turn down an opportunity to point a mic at one. The Bratchell kit is lovely. It goes together very easily with little or no fettling. The first driving trailer is on the workbench just now and nearing completion. As with my 320, the centre car will become one big speaker enclosure, which produces astonishing volume levels. Most of the 90 sounds have been edited now and the v3.5 project updated with playable horns, correct pan and auxiliary compressor sounds, wheelslip sounds, improved main compressor sound, new sander sounds and so on. The first draft of the v4 version is on the burner now, using the 'template' developed initially for the 85. The v4 90 will have different horns at either end, neutral section sounds triggerable on demand and the ability to 'put the loco in forward' with the blowers running without actually going anywhere, as per the prototype.

This week, the rain of Llangollen was swapped for the blistering 27-degree heat of East Anglia, with a Class 90 & DVT recording session at Norwich Crown Point, hosted by the fine fellows of Greater Anglia. My partner in crime this time was Richard Armstrong, aka the 'Armstrong Powerhouse' who produces sound packs for various Train Simulator packages. The loco (90012, Royal Anglian Regiment) was in fine fettle and our assistant did a great job of getting the noises we wanted from it. Although we 'got there in the end', the day did have more than it's fair share of audible challenges, notably; a big tanker delivering diesel for the depot's units, two RAF Tornados on manouevres, regular passing trains on either side (the depot sits inside the junction of the lines to Liverpool Street and Sheringham / Lowestoft), seagulls, a Network Rail track warning beeper in the distance, a fork lift driver who enjoyed replying to our horns and so on. When we'd finished with the 90 we moved on to a nearby DVT and recorded a great set of horns amongst other things. All I need now is a month off work to process all the recordings.... I've always been a keen railway photographer but in recent years my lens has started to widen out from the rolling stock to include railway men and women at work. This chap giving a 90 a wash and brush up at Norwich is a good example. You never know, I might have enough to fill a book one day.

Saint Collen's coracle would have come in handy over the weekend when the Chetter & Bishop 'dream team' paid a two-day recording visit to the Llangollen Railway at the kind invitation of the Llangollen Railcars Group. The weather was not kind, the wettest since Temple Mills in my case, but didn't hinder proceedings unduly. Four mics were pointed at the 108, Wickham (109) and 141 on several runs each up and down the full length of the line, producing some excellent under-load engine sounds. Also laid down in each case were cold and warm starts, horns from both ends plus a full set of all the distinctive 'auxiliary' sounds like the guard's buzzer, vacuum brake applications, saloon heater and so on. All 3 units were in really great shape and a credit to the group, so there were none of the issues of 'dodgy' sounds you sometimes get with preserved stock. The Wickham in particular is like new inside and a treat to ride in. If you haven't visited Llangollen yet then next weekend is your ideal opportunity as it's the Railcar Gala. The line itself winds for 7.5 miles along the banks of the river Dee, in full spate at the moment with the recent rain, so the waterfalls and rapids along the route are visually and audibly stunning. The line is flanked on both sides by the spectacular foothills of the Snowdonia National Park, and of course hills means gradients and engines working hard. Public thanks go to the group for hosting the visit, and to Evan and the drivers Rod, Jim, Graham and Mike. Paul and I will be making a donation to the group in return for their hospitality.

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 other projects. The photo dates from about 1979; the time when we used to buy a ticket from New Street to International and spend all day going between the two behind AC electrics, 50's and duffs. If you were unlucky you got 'gripped' and had to buy another ticket! Happy days. Busy weekend up ahead. It's an early start tomorrow for two days of recording at a well-known preserved railway and then off to Wigan show on Sunday. You'll have to wait & see which railway! More recordings, I haven't started processing the ones from the last trip yet...

Jeff, Years ago I bought a copy of Designing, Building & Testing Your Own Speaker System by David Weems and have referred to it regularly ever since. I've built more than one set of hi-fi speakers and experimented extensively (and successfully) with the designs you've outlined in 4mm and 7mm scale models. In the case of the 50, I was attempting to build an infinite baffle design of a larger volume using two drive units in phase. I've since realised the mistake I made was electronic and not a speaker design issue at all; I had wired the speakers in series rather than in parallel as intended. Since I've corrected this error the volume is much louder and the fall off in bass is much less obvious. My experiments have shown that increasing the cubic capacity of the enclosure makes a significant improvement to volume. Gains of 50% are not unusual. Using the body or underframe of the loco or unit as the enclosure is highly effective. The improvement in bass is measurable and audible but not quite as dramatic. My most effective gains in bass have come from large bass reflex designs with long reflex tubes, employed successfully in my 56 and HST. I'm beginning to wish I'd gone for this with the 50. Bif

Two models that came close to the lump hammer treatment this weekend were a Hornby 50 in 4mm and a Heljan 20 in 7mm, after I expended an inordinate amount of time on both. The 50 is the Rail Express limited edition 50149, weathered by Grimy Times and destined to become the star in a You Tube video demonstrating my v4 Class 50 sounds. Yesterday I milled off the weight in the underframe and spent most of today building a long speaker enclosure to fit down the middle with cut-down tanks etc glued on the sides. It contains two 20x40mm ESU speakers, wired in phase and completely airtight. I was convinced it would sound great but it's nowhere near as good as I expected. Back to the drawing board with that one. The Heljan 20 was loaned to me by Charlie to try out my project in 7mm. The casting has space for a chip (fitted vertically) and a speaker (in the tanks), but like a venn diagram, the two spaces overlap so you can't fit both at the same time. Without going into detail, fitting chip and speaker was a complete pain in the butt which I will steer well clear of in the future. In contrast, their 26 was much easier and well thought out. There can't be that many photos of Class 50's on the drags but here's one; 50023 Howe leaving Arley tunnel on the Nuneaton-Birmingham line dragging what looks like an 86, circa 1980.

Ding ding ding ding ding, can I have some order please! Younger viewers should turn over to Dick & Dom now. XL'ing the Class 33 for v4 has highlighted one or two things about the project that I wasn't happy with. I also noticed that some improvements made to other projects hadn't found their way to the 33 yet so this evening was time to start putting this right. I'm not quite finished yet but the new version will have 'Multi-Start' (prime more than once, extend the cranking, have the loco fail to start after repeated cranking, attempt another start and so on). At slow speeds, slight acceleration will now cause a rise to notch 1 and back down again (previously stayed at idle unless you exceeded the notch 1 threshold). Finally, if you thrash hard from stationary then quickly drop the throttle, the 'escape' back to idle is now much better (previously took too long, loco still thrashing when it should have been back at idle). Tonight's photo was taken in the pouring rain at Salisbury, mid-way through an All-Line Ranger in April 1983. Of the 6 nights that week, only one was spent in a proper bed. The itinerary had been carefully planned such that we spent each night tucked up in a nice, warm steam-heated compartment on some obscure overnight train (unfortunately without en-suite facilities - I don't recall washing arrangements other than paying 10p for a shower at Glasgow Central. You could do these things when you were young). Everything went well until one train in Scotland turned up with early Mk2 stock which had those fibreglass bucket seats you couldn't lay across. I've had worse night's sleep since then, but not many. If you are still struggling to remember, Colin Crompton was the flat-capped compere at the Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club, and one of 'The Comedians'.

Although it is possible to load a sound project written for a standard (HO/OO) chip into a v4 XL, you tend to find that all of the bassy sounds are too loud when played through the bigger speaker, so relative volume levels have to be revisited. The bigger speaker also ruthlessly exposes any deficiencies in your clip editing. Any slight glitch leaps out at you, having been inaudible through a small speaker. First recipient of the treatment is my 26 project, which sounds great in my Heljan test-bed loco. The 20, 33, 37 & 47 will be next, for the Heljan range. The photo is from the early 90's. On summer Saturdays there was a train that brought holidaymakers from (I believe) Carlisle to Ayr. In days gone by it used to run to Butlins at Heads of Ayr but Thomas Cook et al put paid to that. Motive power was invariably a 26 or 37 and needless to say there were more bashers on the train than holidaymakers. My Bachmann 85 is now roaring merrily around the layout, the project having received a number of tweaks and improvements to suit the model. The model itself is absolutely superb, shame we had to wait 30 years for it. I wonder which AC electric Bachmann will use the chassis for next...?

The arrival of the 85 from Bachmann has accelerated the conversion and upgrade of my v3.5 sound project to v4 standards. One of the more interesting features enabled by the v4 is an on-demand neutral section, triggered by a function key. Whilst running along at anything other than a very slow speed, pressing F11 causes the contactors to drop out and the blower motors to spool down. Pressing F11 again pulls the contactors back in and the blowers fire up again. Also of note is the ability to select forward and start the traction motor blowers without going anywhere, as a driver might do when anticipating the signal clearing. Similarly, you can also, if you choose, bring the loco to a standstill and keep the traction motor blowers running (as if the driver kept the loco in forward). Bringing the loco to a standstill in the normal manner will cause the blowers shut down (as if the driver selected off / idle) This is all achieved under control of the throttle, without any button-pushing. The project is now at the stage where I'm happy to put it on general release. The photo was taken at Hartshill, just North of Nuneaton on one of those hot, sunny days in the school holidays that we all remember. At that time you could sit and take photos from the foundations of the old station, which have long-since been fenced off. The missed photo opportunity that afternoon was the APT, which was so quiet in comparison that it shot by before anyone was ready. Good news for O gauge modellers is the arrival of the v4 XL chip from Loksound. I've got a handful in the house and I've yet to fire one up but I suspect it will be worth waiting for. In other news, my v4 Class 31 is now ready.

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 Leicester). The mists of time have obscured the reason why. Back then we used to detour to the railway on the way to school to see what was on the first Birmingham-Norwich of the day. I don't remember actually being late for school but we did have to run a few times when it ran late. The upgrade to v4 involves several broad steps; 1. Making various changes to the project in order to improve the driving response. Without giving away 'trade secrets', the aim here is to ensure that any significant change to the throttle elicits a (sound) reaction as quickly as possible, typically within 0-2 seconds. None of the 'open the throttle wide and wait 10 seconds for the sound to catch up' here. 2. Reviewing the recordings I've got with a view to extracting new clips to take advantage of the extra space. In particular I have a look to see what I've got in the way of priming, cranking and starting, to see what 'multistart' options will be possible. If suitable recordings exist, the necessary clips are extracted and incorporated into the project. 3. Sourcing / extracting an extra set of horns so that the two ends sound different, just like the real thing. Locos in preservation that have two sets of working horns that all sound good are few and far between so often these have to be sourced from different locos. For the 31 I've only got one set so I'll be looking for an opportunity to record another in the future. 4. Sourcing / extracting additional clips of door slams, buffer clash, brake application sounds etc, to add variety to the project. 5. I'm sure there are more steps but it's time for bed now...

I'm glad you like the 73 SRMan. The engine on the 73 has surprisingly deep bass. Here's how to double your volume and vastly improve the bass without spending any money!; The Hornby / Lima 73 has a vast amount of empty space inside that can act perfectly as one big speaker enclosure. What you need to do is to build the drive unit from your bass reflex into that enclosure, facing downwards. You can do this at engine room floor level, or at the bottom of the tanks, but you must seal all around it so that air from the front of the speaker cannot leak back into the body. The hole in the bass reflex speaker can be sealed (or cut off completely). If you use a craft knife you'll find that your bass reflex speaker will split in two fairly easily along the join. Then, after cutting a suitable hole in the bottom of the loco it's only a 10 minute job with some thick plasticard to build it in and form a seal around it. Let it dry and then check for leaks by holding it up to the light. Once you're happy, fire up the sound and it will blow your socks off. Alternatively, keep your bass reflex for another loco and use one of the massive 28x40 speakers from Alan Butcher and your 73 will be even better. They're available from Digitrains. If you do use one of those, make sure you seal the 4 mounting holes too. This same technique can be used in quite a few other locos and units (Hornby Eurostar, Bachmann Voyager, 158 etc etc). Bif

It's not very often I finish two projects at once but that's what has happened this time. I have a policy of continuous improvement so I don't really consider any project as truly 'finished' but the Class 50 & 303 are both at the stage where I'm happy to release them into the wild. It will be a while before I do videos of either though. As mentioned before the 50 comes with multistart which in this case means user-controlled priming and both cold and warm starts. It has two different sets of horns, one in each direction, and an automatic cooler group fan which starts when the driver takes power, as per the prototype (this can be turned off if you don't like it though). You will definitely need a bass-reflex for best results, ideally in the underframe, but the effort is worth it. I was expecting the 303 to be similar in character to the 304 but in fact they sound quite different. One reason for this (I learned at Bo'ness) is that the traction motors on a 303 were cooled by a quiet oil pump rather than noisy blowers. And of course the 303's had sliding doors and beepers rather than slam doors like the 304. As mentioned previously, around 90% of the sounds with this project are genuine 303. Nothing particularly noteworthy about the Class 303 photo other than the location - platform 5 at Nuneaton! It was taken in April 1983, in the middle of an All-Line ranger which cost me the princely sum of £100. I think there were a handful of them allocated to Longsight at the time though I stand to be corrected?

In the olden days, before 50's were called Hoovers we used to refer to them as 'bleeps'. I have no idea where that name came from, or if it was in common usage. Answers on a postcard... The photo is a vintage scene from Birmingham New Street in the late 70's. I wonder if Jim is planning to have hordes of spotters at the platform ends like this?! Those were the days. The Class 50 project is shaping up nicely with a full set of auxiliary sounds recorded recently at the ELR. I've ended up using engine sounds recorded from the same loco back in 2008, simply because they provided everything I needed to make a 'multistart' chip including both cold and warm starts. The cold start is great, slow and chuggy but eventually blends seamlessly into the idle. This single clip ate up 81 seconds of the four minutes available on a v4 chip! Recordings from Bo'ness have already been put to good use in the Class 37 project. I recorded the horns at both ends of their loco and have replicated this in my two projects (37/0 & 37/4). Also, it's now possible to do shorter, more prototypical 'toots' than was possible before.

A two-week course in Scotland provided an ideal spring-board for a bit of recording during the middle weekend. Various Scottish modellers have been asking me to record the sliding doors on a 303 and adapt my 304 project accordingly. However, with the help of the hard-working chaps at Bon'ess I've managed to go well beyond that and record almost all the sounds that the 303's made, including horns, driver & passenger doors, hustle alarm, main & auxiliary compressors, guard's right away bell, aws, oil pump (which they had instead of traction motor blowers), brake releases, main contactor & battery charger hum. The only things which couldn't be done on the day were pan up / down (which might be a possibility in the future) and the traction motors themselves (no 25kV!). All this was possible because the majority of things ran off 240V which can be temporarily lashed up from a shore supply. For good measure I took the last trip of the day on 37175 and recorded the start-up & run from the back cab, then captured all the 'auxiliary' sounds when we got back. Hopefully this will yield some improvements to my existing 37 project (better / bi-directional horns for a start) and perhaps another 37 project altogether with the new engine sounds. If you haven't visited the Bo'ness & Kinniel Railway it is highly recommended. They have a great roster of Scottish region diesels which are all in fine fettle and the line has a long and steep bank on the way up to Kinniel.Thrash-tastic!

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 will be a long time before we get the major bits we really want working again. The first proper recording session of the year was a bit of a departure from the norm for me. It was at the invitation of the young man behind 'The Armstrong Powerhouse' Train Simulator sound site. Needless to say the opportunity to spend the day with a preserved line, 5 coaches and three main line locos at our complete disposal wasn't to be missed. It's too early to say whether we'll see legomanbiffo sound projects for all three locos since, being a guest I didn't always have 'the best seat in the house' but we will see. Which locos? You'll have to wait & see! Extraction of suitable clips from the recordings has begun but will have to be set aside again as the training gets under way again on Monday. Roll on the end of the month when things get back to normal.