Hi John and Pete,
Thank you both so much for your helpful and comprehensive answers to my Email. I too am a very satisfied customer of John at Youchoos and it was a discussion with him about the capabilities of the new Zimo MS decoders that lead to my questions. Apparently you can use two quick select features to give you access to 3 ‘alternative chuffs sets’. John defines his sounds on MS decoders as set1=‘normal’ set2=’light’ set3=’heavy’. The quick select keys have to be consecutive to each other, but can start anywhere. John currently uses F7 and F8 on MS decoders as his default option. Press F7 and you get ‘light’ chuffs. Press F8 and you get ‘heavy’ chuffs. John also assigns shunt mode and solo driving modes to F7, as they work together well reducing momentum etc.
Alternatively you could have these quick select keys on F5+F6 for example, but then you’d need to move whatever is there at the moment elsewhere.
Given your current standardisation, if you were to add MS decoders to your fleet, would you have the Quick Selects for Light and Heavy on F5 and F6 or F7 and F8? In addition, by my maths, you would still have 2 function keys in the easily accessible F1 to F9 range available. So, of all the additional sounds available in Johns library, which 2 do you think would be the most useful for realistic operation?
Many thanks again for all your help and kind regards
Andy