legomanbiffo

Paul, I found that although the compressor did run continuously as you say, it did not compress continuously, and there was a clear audible difference when it was loaded and compressing which could be heard if you were nearby. The exhauster was the same. Conversely, when the compressor stopped compressing the sound stopped quite suddenly but the exhauster faded out much more slowly after 'exhausting'. I chose to implement both at prototypically low volume levels in relation to the engine (with appropriate fade-outs) and these levels are also user-adjustable via CV if you think they are too loud. I always make careful observation of such things and take time to speak to the drivers, owners and fitters to capture all the subtle nuances so I can incorporate them in the project. I don't just throw these things together! :-)

D2595 certainly appeared to be fitted with them, they sounded similar to the spirax valves I've heard on many other locos. Faithfully recorded and reproduced in my 05 sound project which is now ready. As well as these you have the following completely authentic sounds; playable horns, randomised coupling hook, playable brake application sounds, randomised door slams, brake dump, compressor, sanders, vacuum exhauster, handbrake, reverser crash. You can put the loco in forward and the transmission begins to rattle just like the prototype, but the loco doesn't move until you are ready. There are three different gear change sequences which are triggered via a function key. The engine sounds when accelerating are nice long sequences to add interest, without compromising throttle response.

Geep, I think you'll find that you've got F11 turned on, so when you turn the sound on via F1 you're getting F11 played at the same time. Turn off F11 and it will be fine, the project doesn't do that as standard. Bif

Here's a taster of the latest rubbish from me! Just putting the finishing touches to it now. I haven't done a shunter for ages so it's been an interesting diversion. My thoughts are now turning to which of my recordings to process next. Bif

For Charlie, or the locos? :-)

Outstanding video of the night-time possession. What I've always thought is impotant is not the rivet-counting detail or whether somethings got the right boiler port etc, but does it look and feel right. That is far more important (especially if neglected). This looks and feels exactly right!

Ken, I've known about this feature of the V4 for a while but didn't realise just how useful it is until someone showed me recently. I have been experimenting with the settings in my 26 & 67 (the first locos that came to hand), with a view to rolling this out to my whole range. As you can appreciate that is quite an undertaking. From memory neither the 26 nor 67 revved up inappropriately when uncoupling and did exactly what it says on the tin, so I'm not sure why it would do it on the WH37. I'll try it when I get a minute. My sounds incorporate a feature to allow users with centre-off controllers to change direction without producing unwanted brake releases or brake dumps and I suspect it might be related to that, but the 26 and 67 have that too so I'm not sure. If I get to the bottom of it I'll publish some suggested settings. Bif

In general no, but the Ruston 37 is quite well known for it. If you check out the above video of mine on You Tube I've included a couple of links to the real loco doing it, indeed that's where the idea came from. I've also heard that the real one only does it because something or other is not properly adjusted, and it's doing the engine no good at all. I don't know if there's any truth in that. Just a bit of fun for me and an exercise in what could be achieved.

Great idea Jim, and very funny! I especially like your 'posession' pose. I was well impressed with the scanning process, it's like science fiction. We're going to get some done of Charlie and me and legoman!

Alistair, please elaborate on what you thought the issues with the sound file were.

He's getting a black pudding instead of a pie, Ecky Thump style! It's getting made tonight. My daughter, who normally makes dog collars, coats and leads etc is invoicing me for it and the hat. A legitimate business expense if you ask me, promotional material obviously.

Legoman is ready for his trip oop North!

A message, in a faded envelope.... No, not that Night Train (by Visage)! A night-time recording session, more of which later. It's been ages since the last update so there’s a lot to report. The start of a very busy week in February saw me at Gresty Bridge for the first of two trips to record one of DRS’s Vossloh Class 68’s on behalf of Dapol. I was mightily impressed with this loco from both a sound and technical point of view. A full set of sounds were captured, including a static engine run. A return visit in June involved a very early start to attach mics onto the loco prior to hauling the Crewe-Mountsorrel (empty) and loaded return journey. These engine recordings, made with 1300 tons on the drawbar sound superb in the test bed loco! The run took place on the Friday of the DEMU weekend, and if you took a photo of the return working passing through Burton that afternoon you may be able to see Andy Forty and I in the cab. Just days after the 68 session at Crewe, on the Thursday prior to Model Rail Scotland we were at Shields Road to tick off the next-oldest Scottish EMU on my to-do list, the Class 318 with the assistance of First Scotrail. Having done the 303 and 314 previously, next year’s target, already being lined up, will be the 334 Juniper. This year's journeys to and from Model Rail Scotland were typically cloudy, wet & dull and not much use for photography, but we did scope some great locations and followed them up on the Perth trip. A notable faux pas on the way to one location saw us nearly get Richard’s shiny Jaguar stuck down a badly rutted farm track, just as it started snowing. A very lucky escape and a lesson learned. March saw Richard Armstrong and I at Wembley Depot as guests of Chiltern, who came good with their promise to give access to a 67 before they went off lease. I’ve made several attempts at capturing good engine sounds from a 67 without the intrusive spirax valves but none have been completely successful. This time the fitters knew exactly what to do and killed them for the duration, and I’m much happier with the results. I’ll be updating the 67 with these and various other new sounds as soon as possible. My first recording visit to the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire railway was a very pleasureable affair featuring 26043 at the front. I’m pleased to say that the engine on this one didn’t hunt like the previous one and the recordings are much more usable. I will probably take the opportunity to do a complete new version of the 26 to complement my existing one, to give some variation to the fleet of anyone who has more than one. Given my current workload this should be available sometime in 2018... As you probably know by now I was asked by Jason of Rapido if I could do the sounds for the APT-E, which I agreed to. I was fortunate enough to have the assistance of Kit Spackman (aka ‘Mr Tilt’), who travelled and worked on said machine and knows the sounds very well, and Paul Ledley who is one of the preservation team at Shildon with a number of useful video and audio recordings. The result is quite different to your average sound chip and was both challenging and enjoyable to do. One feature I included for historical interest is a seamlessly blended montage of all the good bits from an on-board recording of the intercom channel on the record-breaking 143.2mph run. The train had no less than 10 gas turbines which were started up in a pseudo-random sequence depending upon the driver. The chip will allow those who want to reproduce this to do so (with multiple starts all happening in parallel, or one at a time), but will also allow you to ‘start-up & drive off’ in the normal way by pressing F1 if you don’t want to faff about. Doncaster show was notable for the superb meal of fish & chips at the Whitby restaurant opposite the racecourse, and great photos at Clay Cross North and South on the way up. During the summer, I had the pleasure of Andrew Keast’s company for a couple of days (Andrew is the tallest one of the Kernow team!). One day was spent on a photographic tour of the local railway hotspots, and the second was spent recording Andrew’s dulcet tones for the announcements on the Cornish FGW 143 chip! My original version of the 143 with First Great Western announcements features the voice of a good friend of mine Paul Woolard, who’s photos you may have seen in the railway press. As well as a great eye for a photo, Paul has a lovely rounded West Country accent! Peter Lord (of Lord and Butler) has kindly agreed to voice the Arriva Trains Wales announcements in his wonderfully evocative tones, and there will also be a Lancastrian version of the Northern Rail chips featuring announcements by Mick Bryan! Who do we think has the voice for the Yorkshire Northern Rail? September brought an unusual overnight recording session at Longsight with Ben Ando, doing the Pendolino. The session took place during the luckiest weather window ever with Manchester living up to its reputation immediately before and after. We arrived at the depot at 2030 and were walking back to the car around 0300. I finally got to bed at 0630 in the morning. I’ve been after the Pendolino for some time so I was pleased to finally get one in the bag. The Hornby test-bed is currently rattling round my test track now and is starting to sound really good. The most recent recording session was at the Spa Valley again, doing the visiting Classes 14 & 25 with Richard Armstrong. In contrast to Manchester the weather at this venue was once again absolutely glorious. You have to pinch yourself to believe how lucky you are to spend days like that running through beautiful countryside with the train and the entire line at your disposal. It’s tough work but someone has to do it. Richard’s videographer pal Jordi was on hand to capture proceedings so expect another video in the fullness of time. Previous hard work at the Spa Valley has borne fruit as Kernow have decided to use my sounds in the latest batch of their superb Thumper. Anyone with a v4 chip with the old sounds on can benefit from a reblow if they drop me a PM or email. I fitted smoked acetate behind all of the windows in mine, which hides two Alan Butcher bass reflex speakers! My Hymek project has had a very long gestation period (it’s been almost a year since it was recorded at the East Lancs Railway!), but has finally come to fruition. Needless to say that it features all the usual bells and whistles including different departure sequences, but also the ability to depart at idle even on a heavy train, which I’m reliably informed that the real ones can do. ‘Available now’ as they say. The model has room in the tanks for a 23mm round speaker which sounds pretty good, and fitting is relatively straightforward. Video to follow shortly. Following the generous provision of an accurate recording by a customer, RETB sounds have now been added to all projects associated with the West Highland line (37/0 & 37/4 West Highland, 67, 156). Although there’s no RTR model yet, anyone who’s built their own Hastings Unit can now buy a chip for it from us. The English Electric engine is very reminiscent of a Class 20, and those SR whistles and compressors sound great! Finally, my Ruston 37/9 has now broken cover and is available from Charlie as usual. Following an enquiry from a customer and a bit of experimentation on my part, the chip now features the ability to recreate the‘flaming exhausts’ that the prototype is well known for. All you have to do is drill out your exhaust port and fit one or two LED’s underneath (I used a red one driven from Aux1 and an orange one from Aux2). The result is highly effective, with both gentle and heavy flaming that only occurs at appropriate times (eg startup & heavy acceleration), and in time with the engine beats. Videos to follow shortly.

More than one of the Thumper horns I've recorded had a 'strangled chicken' tone but from experience all the tones are more honk-y than other loco horns. I've also been told that strangled tones were quite typical of them and SR horns in general, so I decided to include one for authenticity. Gwiwer's comment and observations above seem to justify that decision. It's only on one tone, in one direction on the chip, the other three tones are 'normal'. If you're really not happy with it though Keith, please get in touch with Charlie or myself; the last thing I want is a customer who's not happy with something :-) As an aside, when writing the above I was surprised to find that the automatic forum police wouldn't let me write the word honk-y without the hypen! Bif

I picked up a good tip for insulators from Andi Dell; self-wind them using single core wire around a thicker piece of stiff wire the same size as the registration arms. I found that 15 turns was about right for my WCML Mk1 portals. The plus-point is that they are virtually free! I'm struggling to remember how I fixed them in place, possibly a dot of superglue at either end. They certainly look the part.

I nearly wet myself reading some of the posts on there, excellent! Plenty of that goes on where I live, in fact the way the (so-called) policing works it's virtually encouraged. The main drag falls under the jurisdiction of the Police who you never see, despite daily obstructions of roads and pavements caused by illegal and / or highly inconsiderate parking. However, if you choose to park completely legally in the nearby Council car parks and walk for 30 seconds to the shops, you fall under the scrutiny of the highly visible and financially motivated Council car parking attendant who'll ticket you as soon as look at you. It's so 'arse about face', it's unbelievable (yet sadly typical of the political mismanagement in this once great country of ours). Rant over.

I believe Dave is correct. The issue is outlined in a useful thread by Paul Chetter above entitled momentum idiosyncrasies. Basically the NCE controller will modify the inertia settings of the chip if you press the momentum button. Nothing you can do to the chip can prevent this happening. However, the affected CV's (3 & 4) are easily re-written if you press it by mistake and I'm always happy to provide the 'factory settings' on request (though it's not difficult to find suitable values yourself by experimentation). Bif

I didn't realise when penning tbat quick 'bedtime' reply that it was the 05 you were referring to. Steps are already underway to source one of those to record and initial signs are promising.

Do you know where there are any working examples of the type you're referring to - preserved railways etc?

The latest one has all-new engine sounds and many other enhanced features following a recording session at the Spa Valley Railway. Charlie and I spent today at Steve Brammer's house recording a tranche of videos on his excellent layout. These included several of the new Thumper. They need to be edited and captioned etc but will then be posted on You Tube, and on the Kernow website in the case of the Thumper. Watch this space.

If previous shows are anything to go by, the stand and my laptop will be flat out but in principle yes! Bif

Indeed it will; Wigan, Gaydon, Peterborough and Warley for Charlie and I before the year's out, and Charlie will no doubt take the show to a handful more on his own. I will make sure we have a Deltic or two. Steve our sound fitter / experimenter extraordinaire is on about Mk4 speaker-fit now and each is slightly better than the previous one. We've also come across a brand new speaker which has a step-change in bass performance. It really is a game-changer. I've auditioned all the really bassy locos through it (55, 56, 60, 68 etc) and it is jaw-droppingly good. You would think you were listening to an O gauge loco with a huge speaker, in fact it's smaller than a standard bass reflex. Charlie is presently sourcing stocks at a reasonable price and we should have some available soon. All being well I'll also be bringing a Kernow Thumper that sounds really good, a Ruston 37 with very realistic 'flaming exhausts' ( ! ) and a brand new loco, the release of which is fairly imminent. Oh, and Legoman will have a new outfit for Wigan :-) Bif

It will indeed Paul; I'm pleased to announce that we have come to an arrangement with Kernow for their factory sound fitted Thumpers to feature my brand new sound project. Here is a video of the sounds being recorded by myself and Richard Armstrong (of The Armstrong Powerhouse fame) at the Spa Valley Railway. Richard is the young slip of a lad, I'm the old git in black; The first batch of chips are being blown as we speak. Bif

Absolutely outstanding and inspirational HST James, well done. I have experimented those fridge-magnet type strips before and found that they work well. I suspect having all the jumpers on one strip might be better in operation. The 350 EMU is another obvious contender for this technique. In my opinion, fitting obviously missing items such as passengers, corridor connections and jumper cables makes far more of an impact than (say) changing coarse grilles for finer scale ones, or correcting errors in boiler water fillers! Bif

Since you've asked, a Class 14 recording session will be taking place next month. If this is sucessful you might see a chip before the end of the year. Bif