legomanbiffo

It sounds like your enclosure might not be completely airtight. From experience of building four I found that the slightest leak made a big difference. Check seams and corners carefully and apply extra liquid-poly or sealant if necessary. The best way to check is to put the reflex port to your mouth and gently apply breath pressure and see if it leaks away. Gentle breath pressure in and out should move the speaker cone up and down. If it doesn't move very much, or not at all, you probably have a leak. You can check where air is leaking by dampening the back of your fingers and feeling all round for cold air whilst you blow gently into the reflex tube. If the model is reassembled it's difficult to get a seal around the hole with your mouth so put a short length of tube (eg the middle of a ballpoint pen) into the hole and seal all around it with blu-tac to try. This all sounds a bit Heath-Robinson but believe me it does work.

Those coaches are shaping up really nicely. It's great to see someone taking the initiative and producing something completely new. I don't know if it's of interest but I have a full set of recordings of a Class 442, made at Railcare Wolverton a couple of years ago. I haven't done anything with them to date as there was no model to the best of my knowledge, but if you were after a DCC sound chip let me know... Bif

I love the synchronised smoke, very nice.

I will shortly be releasing a resin part to make this job much easier. The part will replace the centre moulding of the Heljan tanks and incorporate a sealed chamber for a 20x40 rectangular speaker. The tank-sides will then be a simple clip-fit onto the outside, so none of your detail will be lost. Experience shows that this configuration sounds infinitely better than unsealed speakers in the roof space facing up. There will be versions for the 26, 27 and 33. In the fullness of time I'll see what can be done with the locos that have had their boiler water tanks removed. BIf

V3.5 chips use 100 ohm speakers and V4's use 4 ohm ones, so one way to tell is by the number printed on the speaker (ie 100 or 4). Another way to tell is as follows; Set the master volume control (CV63) to 64 and see how loud the sounds are. Then set the volume to 192 and try the sounds again. If they are louder you have a v4. If they stay the same you have a v3.5. CV63 on the v3.5 can be set to any value from 0 (minimum volume) to 64 (maximum) CV63 on the v4 can be set to any value from 0 (minimum volume) to 192 (maximum) Bif

No, it's for the 20x40 which seem to perform better with these locos. We will supply 26 / 27 / 33 chips with a suitable speaker on request, and as part of a pack with the enclosures.

My lawyers have been informed :-) Bif

Jamie, You can hear them in our 7mm demo loco which often has people grinning so something must be right. All of the 4mm ones I did were a pal's so I don't actually have one in 4mm to demo. Bif

In this one I didn't remove the entire tanks but in later ones (as the method matured) I removed most of them leaving only the cosmetic sides and the ends. To an extent it's the end result that's important, not how you get there. The end result should be a big sealed box with a long tube to the outside air. Bif

I had two opportunities to photograph the APT-P in service. The first time at Hartshill we didn't hear it coming and it was going so fast the shot was completely missed. A couple of years later I took another shot of it at Bletchley with no film in the camera. I also dropped a Mamiya 645 from my backpack onto the pavement and miraculously the only damage was to the skylight filter which hit the ground first. I can still remember the gasps from the onlookers. In the days when you sent your slides off to Kodak to get processed I lost a complete film in the post. Glorious summer shots taken in NSE days at West Drayton. I got about three shots that day from the next film but the loss has scarred me ever since. Whatever you do in life, you have to learn all the different ways of cocking-up first.

Late February means it’s time for our annual pilgrimage to the frozen North and Model Rail Scotland. This year’s trip started a day early on the Wednesday, for reasons that will become apparent shortly. First stop was to stoke up at the Little Chef just off Jcn 16 on the M6 (Crewe), our usual breakfast stop for this trip. Several en-route photo opportunities had been discussed but in the end we went to a favourite from last year; Docker, on the WCML in Cumbria. Upon arrival, a search on Real Time Trains quickened the pulse as the ‘logs’ to Chirk was due. Almost as I finished reading the words the unmistakable pounding of a 56 drifted into auditory view and we prayed for the sun to stay out. And stay out it did, I still can’t believe how lucky we were. Subsequent shots of an unliveried 350/4 and a Plasser tamper pushing a trolley-thingy were nowhere near as good with the sun in (even after adjusting the white balance). From there it was a short hop to Greenholme by which time the rain came on. The intermodal DRS 66 working which normally flies through Atherstone was reduced to a crawl on the climb to Shap and made for interesting listening. A mental note and reference shots were taken of this excellent location and then it was onwards and upwards to a sadly freight-free Carlisle station. The first night stop was at Moffat, staging post for the final thrust in the morning. If you’ve never visited Moffat I can thoroughly recommend it, plenty of good hotels and restaurants in a beautiful setting in the Southern Uplands, and after breakfast only an hour to Glasgow. The subject of Thursday’s attention was a 35-year old successor to the famous ‘Blue Trains’; the Class 314. This recording session had had a very long gestation. Following a steer from a DEMU member in early 2013 (thanks Peter), a session had been set up for February last year, but was cancelled at the last minute when the host called in sick – doah! Luck was on our side this year and thanks to First Group and staff at Shields Road this veteran unit has now been captured for posterity. No model yet as far as I’m aware but a set of recordings ‘in the bank’ nevertheless. We never thought we’d see models of Lion / EM1 / Blue Pullman etc so someone will do one eventually. Friday and Saturday was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends but sad news was to arrive. My very good friend and ‘chauffuer’ Richard had to drop everything and leave for Manchester where his aged father had taken a turn for the worse. Sadly he died not long afterwards but Richard was fortunate enough to get there in time. The rest of the show wasn’t quite the same, and getting myself and all my stuff home was interesting with no transport. Plenty of offers were forthcoming from fellow modellers and traders passing through the Midlands, but everyone was leaving on Monday. As I needed to get back on Sunday the services of Virgin & London Midland were called upon. An offer of £92 First Class was grabbed with both hands. My camera, recording gear and show purchases went to Manchester with Richard. The stock boxes that would fit in Charlie’s already-bursting van went to Leeds, and the rest was kindly taken by Fiona of DCC Supplies back to Worcester and I will be re-united with them all at Leamington show. Oh, and my car was stuck at Richard’s house, half an hour from home. Recording sessions for later in the year are shaping up nicely. Nothing I can divulge just now but suffice to say that there are some interesting and innovative things in the pipeline. Finally, with the assistance of Pete Harvey we will shortly be launching a range of 'easy-fit' resin underframe tanks incorporating loudspeaker enclosures, to make high-quality sound much easier to achieve. First examples will be for the Heljan 26, 27 & 33, with a set for the Bachmann 40 currently in development.

This article details a loudspeaker design which will significantly improve the sound from your Bachmann Deltic regardless of whose version of Deltic sounds you use (mine, Howes, SWD etc). Of the four different speaker designs I tried, this one performed the best by some margin. Photographs of the prototype design follow the text. The article is offered in good faith for the common good. No responsibility is accepted if you destroy your model trying! Aim; To construct an airtight chamber in the underframe fuel tank area of the Bachmann Deltic, with a long reflex tube, open to the air at one end, and using the drive unit from a bass reflex speaker. The reflex tube acts like an organ pipe; resonating at, and reinforcing the lower frequencies that are needed to produce a convincing Deltic sound. In the finished article, the open end of the tube and the loudspeaker drive unit will be at the same end of the loco, such that the distance the sound has to travel to the outside air is as large as possible. You will need; A length of Evergreen StripStyrene number 258 (rectangular tube 4.8 x 7.9mm / 0.187 x 0.312”) or similar Some plasticard sheet, 30 thou or thereabouts for the bottom (next to the track), and something thinner for the top (next to the motor) A 21 x 57 x 9mm bass reflex speaker Method; 1. Read the method in full before starting work! 2. Remove the body, desolder the connections to the pickups at both ends, remove the bogie screws and drop the bogies. 3. Unclip the underframe moulding and set the casting to one side. 4. Use a disc cutter in a dremel to carefully cut out the central section of the underframe, leaving the two ends and the cosmetic fuel tank sides in place. Tidy up with a file and sandpaper so that the long internal sides are completely flat (you’ll need all the width you can get at this stage) . 5. Cut a piece of the rectangular tube section to the length of the tanks plus 10mm or so initially. Make a flush cap for one end and glue in place, then cut the tube to the match the overall length of the tanks. Make sure the cap is airtight. In the finished article one end of the tube will be open to the air and visible on one side of the loco, but painted black will be largely unnoticeable. 6. Take the bass reflex speaker and using a razor saw, cut off the end with the hole such that the length is reduced to around 44mm long. The actual length is not critical, but it looks better if you keep it symmetrical. Carefully split the speaker enclosure in half along the seam and discard the back. The drive unit remains in place in the other half in the final design. 7. Carry out a dry run and see if the tube and the remaining speaker assembly will fit side by side in the tanks. Remove plastic carefully until they will. It is quite a tight fit. 8. Take the underframe moulding and place it the right way up on the bench. Use the thinner plasticard to construct a ‘lid’ for the tanks. It needs to be completely airtight, and must not protrude upwards too far or you won’t be able to clip the moulding back onto the casting. Carry out a dry run after glueing to make sure you can clip it back on before leaving things to dry. 9. Loosely fit thetube section into the tanks along one side and mark a rectangular hole in its side, at the same end as the cap. The hole must be open to the inside of the sealed chamber and approximately the same size as the cross-sectional area of the tube (it should be around 3mm x 6mm). Only cut into the side of the tube, not the top or bottom. 10. Desolder the red and black wires from the speaker and carefully pull them away from the glue at the end of the speaker. Remove any residual glue and sand the ends flat in readiness for reconstruction. Replace the speaker wires with thinner ones of sufficient length to run back to the chip. 11. Place the reflex tube and speaker assembly side by side such that the open end of the tube is at the same end of the loco as the loudspeaker drive unit. Drill two tiny holes in the ‘lid’ of the enclosure and pass the speaker wires through. Glue tube and speaker in place and use a square across the bottom to ensure they remain flush whilst drying. 12. Gently pull the speaker wires through so there isn’t too much slack inside the chamber and nothing is touching the speaker cone. Use Evo Stik or something similar to seal around the speaker wires where they pass through the ‘lid’, to make sure the holes are airtight. 13. Once dry, close any remaining gaps at the speaker end of the tank assembly using plasticard or filler, such that the finished enclosure can be completely airtight. 12. Using the thicker plasticard, cut out a rectangle to form the final part of the sealed chamber and glue in place, taking care not to obstruct the hole cut in the reflex tube. Use filler to block any remaining holes in the completed enclosure and tidy up cosmetically. 13. When dry, confirm that the enclosure is completely airtight by sealing your lips around the open end of the reflex tube and gently sucking and blowing. If the speaker cone moves up and down significantly then all is well. If not, seek out and fill any leaks (dampen the backs of your fingers and feel for cold air around the seams etc whilst blowing into the reflex tube). 14. Paint the underframe assembly including the inside of the reflex tube where it will be seen, allow to dry, then reassemble and test. The overall concept. The reflex tube is on the right, with the hole at the corner furthest from the camera A view from the opposite end showing the drive unit and reflex hole A close-up of the reflex hole, which is not noticeable in normal operation

A bit of a mixed bag in the blog this time. Just before Christmas I got a text from Brian Porter at the Crewe Heritage Centre telling me he’d managed to get the traction motor blowers and a number of other things working on the APT. A mutually acceptable date was arranged and off I went, mic in hand. It turns out that the traction motor blowers sound quite different to those of the Class 91, the ones I’d previously used as a ‘best guess’ in lieu of the real thing. The percentage of genuine APT sounds in the project is around 80% now, not bad considering my original expectations a few years ago were for door slams and very little else. While I was there I took the opportunity to climb on the roof and take a full set of reference photos of every vehicle, for the common good. These have been uploaded to my Flickr page, just search for legomanbiffo. By far the biggest disappointment of the day was the Closed sign on the door of Cheshire’s finest fish & chip shop, Goodwins on Nantwich Road, just a short walk from the station on the way to the Heritage Centre. I cannot recommend this place highly enough. It’s a ‘proper’ fish & chip shop with a counter to the front and a sit-down restaurant to the side. The fish is freshly cooked to order, the chips are great and for a very modest sum you get bread & butter and a cup of tea to finish off. Just what was needed after a hard day’s recording. But not this time, doah! The latest set of sounds out of the foundry are for the Windhoff MPV. Yet another one rendered possible by a friendly modeller in a position to assist. Many thanks, you know who you are! In the model I used one of the modules as a speaker enclosure with a 20x40 speaker facing down. I had to cut part of the module’s plinth away to let the sound out but this can hardly be seen behind the side railings. I spent most of last Sunday getting the handbrake to work how I wanted it. The chip is ‘out now’. A Deltic-mad pal of mine has let me loose with his roster of locos in an attempt to discover the best speaker arrangement for said loco. Four designs were tried, all in the underframe area with the main drive unit facing down, and each utilising as much of the underframe area as possible. First up was a simple infinite baffle which was very average. The second attempt was an extended bass reflex which was better, but not by much. Third was a transmission line design with with the tube folded backwards and forwards five times (to maximise the length) before venting to the air. Sadly the results in no way matched the effort involved. The fourth design gave the best Deltic sound I’ve ever achieved in 4mm; a large chamber excited by the drive unit from a bass reflex, and a reflex tube that runs the full length of the tanks down one side. This was made from some rectangular section plastic tube. Also ‘out now’ (out for some time in fact) are my Class 40 sounds, recently tweaked to suit the retooled Bachmann model. The model itself has come close to meeting the lump hammer more than once. The new pickup arrangement is not fit for purpose and despite being a huge model there is nowhere to put a decent speaker. I resorted to a 23mm round speaker fitted in an airtight enclosure in the tanks, which is just about acceptable but not really bassy enough. In a departure from the normal photographic fare, a treat for the kettle fans out there; a pair of black 5’s racing up the WCML near Atherstone on the Cathedrals Express just before Christmas. And no, I don’t do sound for them yet!

You have done very well there, I am impressed. I also started out in v4 by studying what ESU had done in their flowcharts and working out why and how. In the early stages I found myself involuntarily / sub-conciously constrained by how things were done in v3.5, but over time your thinking adjusts to the possibilities and then you can start to make it 'fly'. Keep at it, you've made a great start there. Any questions, lmk. Bif

I can't believe it's so long since my last update, an unfortunate reflection of how busy I've been of late. My missus has been labouring under the misapprehension that DIY and household chores somehow have priority over serious model railway business. She was helping me clean out the loft the other day. All dusty and covered in cobwebs, but she's good to the kids. Actually, she's not been very well lately, she's even had to give up her coal round... The new Deltic videos, filmed at a friend's 7mm garden railway seem to have gone down well, clocking up nearly 1500 hits in a month. Thanks very much Dave for the help. We had so much fun on the day that I forgot to record the various departure sequences and only two of the four were captured. The Heljan model is on the back-burner for a while now but I will get around to putting another big speaker in the free space inside the body. The loco was supposed to have made a public appearance at Newark until a certain Yorkshireman managed to corrupt all the CV's and disable the sound before the show even opened! It seemed to go down well at Peterborough though. I always know from the smiles when I've got it right. Out in the field, just two recording sessions to speak of. The first was undertaken in the 'Garden of England' at the excellent Spa valley Railway (Tunbridge Wells, Kent; sadly on the other side of the M25 hell-hole from me). The session was supposed to have included the Thumper but its turbo expired the week before so in the end it was just 31206. The Thumper is likely to be in the spring now. It was a real pleasure to spend the day on the 31. As a youth living on the Birmingham-Norwich route, 31's featured heavily in my haulage book (just had a quick count-up, over 60 different locos, happy days). This one sounded excellent and pretty much everything was in full working order including both sets of horns. The crew were great and gave me everything I needed. I had plenty of time to set up and tied a boom-mounted mic about a metre from the exhaust (see the photo), which yielded some very clean engine sounds. I also managed to capture various sounds that I missed in my first 31 session when I was just starting out (exhausters, brake applications, BIS etc). The sound project has had an intermediate upgrade (various new auxiliary sounds and enhancements but still with the original engine sounds). The new engine sounds will be incorporated asap so I suppose I'd better start looking for a Hornby loco to ready for a video. Public thanks go to the loco owner, the crew and the railway. As well as the Thumper and 31 the Spa Valley have also got a couple of 33's and the 37 which I recorded in 2011 (37153, now looking superb in Inter-City livery). Well worth a visit if you're down that way. Oh, and they have some of those old-fashioned trains too :-) On the way down to Kent I dropped in to see Richard Armstrong of 'The Armstrong Powerhouse' and have a play on his Rail Simulator set-up (big screen, simulated loco control panel that sits on your lap, sub-woofer, the full monty). Great fun and very interesting to compare and contrast his railway sound editing environment and business with mine. The final amusing anecdote in Kent came after the recording session when we were all starving hungry and ready to eat. I went back to my hotel room (right next door to the railway) to drop my gear off. Walking back down the corridor I was horrified to find a long trail of dirty black footprints leading all the way to my room. Oops! Cue big tip and apology to the cleaner next morning. The most recent recording session was with a Plasser 08-16 tamper which came about as an indirect result of Jonathan Buckie's superb kit. My helper on the day was exemplary, a real authority on the subject and I suspect this won't be the last time we work together. Recording and editing this has been really enjoyable as it's so different to everything that's gone before. They are incredible pieces of kit and very interesting technically. I doubt whether I could have made the project work so well with a v3.5 chip but the v4 is so flexible it has been quite straightforward to make the necessary adaptations from normal loco operation. The project is almost finished, just final testing really now. Jonathan is trying to get a model ready with fitted sound for Warley. I suspect he may shift many more kits than he anticipated, and good luck to him. My 03, 33 & 60 are now in the very capable hands of Lord & Butler for weathering. When I get them back I'll try and get a video done of the 60, and the 33 to demonstrate the all-new engine sounds (recorded from 33109 at the ELR). The 03 will be a while longer as the project is in need of major work to bring it up to current standards. The (very) slow boat from China has finally docked with Charlie's 144's on board. Part of last month was spent recording new beepers, brake applications and a handful of other sounds to enhance things. I also managed to capture a generic Northern Rail on-board announcement which has been included. Now I have had a production model to play with the project has been tweaked to suit the mechanism and the finishing touches have been applied. Many locos and units have distinctive sound features that immediately identify them and you just have to get right. For the 14X units it's the ear-splitting flange squeal that results from the long wheelbase, two-axle design. I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. As with the original version, you can squeal, creak and groan to a standstill and the sound will pick up again (slowly at first) when you set off. Finally, the next recording session is shaping up nicely so perhaps more on that next time...

Jeff, I am sure I replied to it but something must have gone wrong, sorry. I've sent another reply. Bif

Ken, Have you thought of converting one of your 27's into a non-powered dummy (still with sound)? That would obviate the need to speed match the two locos. This is exactly how my Hornby HST rake works with a sound chip at both ends. Just a thought. I had more than one trip hanging out of the window between Waverley and Haymarket on 27 push-pulls! Happy days. Bif

Ding-ding diddle-ing ding ding, ding ding ding ding. I had my head shaved. By a Jumbo jet. It wasn't easy. But nothing is-eh. The first verse of a tune you've all heard countless times on the telly; the classic Song 2 by Blur, all of two minutes long if I recall. And Blur is this week's tenuous connection to my life over the past few weeks! There's a bit of activity to report as a result. Firstly, more raw materials have been obtained after another private session at the ELR. The original plan was to record one of the 37's, the 47 and 117 but at the last minute we were told that one 37 had flat batteries and the other was going away. Fortunately the railway gave us an offer we couldn't refuse so in the end we got the 37 a day early before it went away, then the 47 & 108, and the 40 thrown in for our trouble on the second day! Apart from a quick listen I haven't assessed the suitability of anything yet but I'd like to do a better 47 and a different 37. The 33 fans will be pleased to hear that I have just put the finishing touches to a completely new set of engine sounds, recorded from 33109 on the last visit to the ELR. I'm much happier with them than my first set. They've got a really nice chuggy, rolling idle, and the greater variety of recordings enabled some really nice departures and coasts. An upgraded project is available now. Progress continues on my own GNER 225 set for Warren Lane in its new roundy-roundy guise. I'm in the process of fitting chip, pick-ups and speaker to the Mk4 DVT and detailing all of the coaches. The 91 now has a new Heljan 86 mech, v4 chip and bass reflex speaker in the tanks and sounds really good. Once the DVT is up and running I need to update the sound project with the odds & ends of new material recorded at Crown Point last year. No progress to report on the Deltic other than to say that demos of the 7mm test-bed loco at Derby and Aylesbury shows went down well with those that heard it. I've also borrowed a sound-fitted Bachmann model to use as a 4mm test bed. I'll bring the Heljan loco to Wigan where I'll be on Charlie's stand all weekend with this and plenty of 4mm stock to listen to. In the photo, the Summer theme continues with a vintage scene at Nuneaton on a Summer Saturday circa 1979. Other photos from the day show throngs on spotters on every platform. Most of them are still there on sunny days but they are now wearing flat caps, sitting on folding seats and have no kids, jobs or mortgages to worry about!

Yes, the second loco I recorded was 33109 at the ELR (the first being 33019 at The Battlefield Line). You are right, the engine sounds quite different on 109. Yes I do offer a reblow service. If you send me a Private Message I'll send you a list of all the sounds I do on v3.5 & v4 chips.

Not my favourite track by The Undertones (that would be John Peel's favourite, Teenage Kicks) but good all the same. Yes, the Siberian winter has finally drawn to a close and not before time - I was getting fed up with it. The camera has been out a few times and I was especially pleased with this one of 90041 near Dordon. 'It's all about the sky' as they say. On the workbench I've finally completed engine #1 of the Deltic sound project. In 7mm it sounds really good. In 4mm it's good but quiet, and I fear there is little more I can do about it. With an Alan Butcher bass reflex speaker it is acceptable for home use but you won't hear the engines properly at an exhibition. If anyone is desperate to try it please drop me a line, I'd be interested to hear some feedback before finalising it (you'll get a free reblow with the finished article of course). Developing the second engine has begun but is tricky as it has to be done in the model (the Lokprogrammer software allows you to test one sound set at a time but I need to drive two at once to see how the engine sounds interact). Also coming along nicely on the workbench, and very likely to overtake the Deltic is a new engine sound set for the Class 33, based on recordings made last year at the ELR. This one has got a really nice chuggy, rolling idle and is quite different to the first one I did. I thought Bristol show was better this time than in previous years. There were three really nice 'kettle' layouts and even - shock horror for Bristol - some Modern Image. I picked up a nicely weathered Heljan DPU from Lord & Butler which will no-doubt feature in a video sometime in the future. It's a really nice model and sounds great with a 23mm round speaker at either end (inside the body on the 'shelf' above the bogie towers, facing up).

Did you threaten to overrule him....? Aah, a truly classic political interview by the man at title. Now if I ran the BBC, all political interviews would be conducted with a Nicholas Parsons 'just a minute' style bell. As soon as the interviewee failed to answer the question or decried the opposing party, the bell would be abruptly rung and the interview terminated. Tell us what you're going to do, not what the other party aren't doing, otherwise you're off. Anyway, as you've probably gathered I've been up to something in the Paxman department. First of all, I've done a bit of upgrade work to the Paxman HST sound project. This involved adding engine priming sounds of the correct duration, and a higher-revving speed step at the top end, with all its associated transitions. This has improved the driving experience no end. I've also developed a speed-dependant 'Mk3 coach wail' function. With this a 'wail' clip is played at regular (speed-related) intervals to mimic the airbag suspension noises. There are 8 different wails and the sequence is randomised so the end result sounds completely prototypical. The effect is on a function key and can be turned on and off at any speed as required. This will be rolled out to all Mk3-related chips (67, 86, 87, 90 etc) in due course. Finally, I have been studying a 'wired for sound' HST video in order to model the operation of the cooler group fan more accurately. I'm confident I can get it to behave prototypicaly now, I just need to develop the flowchart for it. This fantastic video gives you an idea of what I'm trying to achieve; In other Paxman news, I had a very interesting discussion about 'Project Miller' with the chaps from the 125 Group at the Nottingham show this weekend. If you haven't heard, the aim of Project Miller is to restore the prototype HST to an operational state using a production Paxman engine. It turns out that the project is much more advanced than I was aware of so all being well we'll all be able to enjoy that Paxman scream again before too long. Details here; http://www.projectmiller.org.uk/ and here; http://www.125group.org.uk/ With the 57 now out of the way and the HST upgrade (almost) completed, the Heljan Deltic has come out of its box and back onto the workbench. Work continues on removing rough edges from the engine sound transitions and creating the last few clips I need to make the engine sounds as responsive as possible. Once this is done I now know where I'm going with the second engine so the whole thing can be brought to a conclusion (at least in 7mm). I'm sure it's going to sound rubbish in 4mm but there are a lot of devotees who won't take no for an answer so my work may not be over at that point... In this week's photo, East Coast's 43320 leans to the curve as it hammers through Alexandra Palace on a Northbound working, unfortunately sounding like a lorry instead of a proper train :-)

Stop press: I had the Deltic running round my pal's big O gauge roundy-roundy this afternoon and it sounded reeeeally nice. The drone at high speed is captured to perfection. The flow of sounds needs a few minor tweaks but it's nearly there.

The 2013 recording season has gotten off to a flying start. The text, received with 48 hours notice said words to the effect; 'do you want to come along and do some recording, with three or four different locos to choose from, one of which you haven't recorded before?' Let me think about that for a minute..... After an hour's drive and a generous helping of lard to set me up for the day, a start was made on the previously unrecorded loco, the 'genetically modified' 57. I must say that when I started out recording this beast it was mainly to fill the gap in the range of chips that I do. I always enjoy the recording process and I knew some users out there would be very happy but at the end of the day I wasn't intending to get a model 57 for myself. Fast-forward two weeks and all that has changed. The damn thing has grown on me to the extent that I bought a sound-fitted one at Doncaster show from those fine chaps at Lord & Butler / Dirty Boy weathering (more on them in my next blog entry). In comparison with the Deltic the editing has been a breeze so far. The project is shaping up nicely with all the ancilliary sounds done, also the multistart functions which were enabled by some skilled choreography by the driver on the day. Many thanks, you know who you are! It's worth pausing for a moment to say that the driver can make the difference between a good project and a great one. When making recordings the instructions you have to give them to achieve what you want can sometimes appear quite abstract (slam the door 9 or 10 times in different ways....don't open the throttle until after that bridge....sound the horn before moving off, not during, and so on). Once you explain the reason in each case, most will understand and do their best. Some set out to do their best but forget and fall into 'normal driver' mode. Some listen attentively and then do their own thing regardless. It also helps to have a driver who is knowledgable on the internal workings of the loco. Can he (temporarily) isolate the noisy traction motor blower whilst you record the quieter compressor next to it? Can he cause the start to fail? Does he know how to bring on the cooling fan if the engine isn't hot enough? Happily the driver in this case was exemplary and a full set of great sounds was captured. After the 57 was finished we moved on to a couple of other locos to capture a handful of sounds on each that I was missing. All in all a very sucessful day's recording. Despite all of the above the Deltic is still moving forward slowly. Every clip of engine sound is in place and there now follows an iterative process of getting them to flow naturally regardless of what you do with the throttle. Once that is done the project would normally be finished but in this case there's the second engine to think about. I'm currently gathering information from various sources that will enable this to be modelled accurately. A week off work has also enabled progress on other things. I've fitted an XL chip and a Visaton 40x70 speaker (!) to a Heljan 7mm 37 for Charlie. The first attempt with the enclosure was unexpectedly rubbish but the second was far better. This just goes to prove the importance of experimentation when doing your speaker fit. I've also done a chip and speaker fit in the new Heljan 31 for a customer of Charlie's. This was something of an ordeal and the thing nearly got the lump hammer on a number of occasions but it got through unscathed and sounds very good. It's also got independantly switchable tail lights and the fan works slowly enough so that the noisy mechanism doesn't drown out the sampled clips of the real fan. In the photo, 57012 pauses at Nuneaton on a working from Lawley Street to Southampton (I believe).

The last couple of weeks have seen me snowed under literally and metaphorically. I thought the chip workload might have slowed a bit in January but not so as you would notice. It genuinely pleases me to know that my work brings a little pleasure into people's lives. Another enjoyable part of what I'm doing, and one which Paul Chetter and I have often spoken about is the importance of capturing these sounds as an historic record; a part of the nation's heritage. As I've said before it would be nice to try and capture every UK diesel and electric loco and unit. A mammoth task I know but we're working on it :-) You Tube viewers will be pleased to know that the video camera has been dusted down and I'm all set to do a bit of filming over the next day or two. Things which I hope to film include; 1. The 08 which I've faded, weathered and fitted a v4 and two Zimo sugar cube speakers. It will demonstrate the new manual priming pump sequence and the user-selectable wooden or metal door slam sounds. 2. 37514 in weathered Railfreight Metals livery, standing in to demonstrate the new 37/9 sound project. 3. A short clip of the 25 demonstrating the user-selectable single or double compressor sounds and the ETHEL functionality. 4. A short clip of the 350, with a proper 350 this time, demonstrating the new on-board announcements. 5. A work-in-progress clip of the Heljan Deltic just to prove that I have actually been doing some work on it! In other news, Charlie has temporarily deviated me from my intended path and had me bringing my v3.5 Thumper project into the 21st Century (purportedly in readiness for the Kernow model but I suspect it's more to do with the fact that he wants one!). The range of sounds isn't quite as exhaustive as some of my other stuff as I don't have a fully comprehensive set of recordings but I'll fix that in the fullness of time. It's just about ready now. I've also made a start on a custom speaker box for the Heljan 7mm 37 which will use the Visaton 70x40 drive unit. I suspect it may growl a bit... I was hoping to get some good railway shots in the white stuff but there was a distinct lack of sun. I did manage to capture 70005 on the way to work though.

There is every chance of that. I'll make some enquiries.