Model Railroading > Sound Question

Hey there-

I am getting back into modeling after a 15 yr break, and have learned all about DCC and what not regarding sound. However, I was trackside the other day and on a tight curve. The train creeped through it and you could hear he "tension" and "squeaking" of the track under the train's weight and the friction the tight curve made against the wheels. my question is, does anyone make a sound decoder or product that a modeler can install along the ROW to enhance such sounds? I thought it would add a lot of ambiance to the realism of operations.

Thanks in advance. You guys give so much great advice, and it really helps.

The sound is called flange squeal in the industry.

It brings up a point about sound.

One modeler I know, a very good one, hates sound. Mostly because a bunch of HO-scale models with small speakers, all running at once in a large room, create an unfocused cacophony. Anyway, I'd say that's what bugs my friend because it bugs me too.

Back in the ancient 80's, Pacific Fast Mail's Bob Longnecker devised a choke coil for the PFM Sound System 2, which acted like a bass separator for a hidden subwoofer. The high frequency sounds from the tender or diesel are specific and focused but not realistic or powerful in spectrum. But the subwoofer kicks out bass, and bass frequencies are non-directional to a listener's perception. The net effect was a localized sound that seemed to come from the engine -- but with walloping chuff, a throbbing EMD, or some very cool rail effects. But the catch was that it was only for a single train.

And that didn't address the idea this poster has, which is a localized flange squeal generator at the place in the track where such a thing would naturally occur. It also begs the question of things like grade crossings, bridges and bridge rumble, separate subwoofers for each train or unit, and so on.

Has anyone -- is anyone -- addressed or addressing the low frequency issues with current DCC? The localizing of effects? You used to see layouts with sawmill noise and honky-tonk piano saloons on tape loop. That got too cute and we sorta gave it up. But isn't the problem with sound now that it's still coming out of a little bitty speaker in a tiny train, and the locomotives only?

What about brake pipe hiss from cars? The Waukesha propane engines of streamlined passenger cars? Mechanical refrigerators? (Something tells me I've heard of these somewhere. Google and Bing are my friend, but sometimes TO is faster!)

I should say I'm way on the sidelines in the hobby these days, but do get out a little and read some fairly often. I just don't crawl the Yahoo. These days I have to ask people "what's a good DCC system?" -- which is like asking a car guy "Who makes a good car I should buy?" Where do you start... ?

Just musing...

~ BZ

Broadway Limited Paragon 2 loco's have the wheel flange squeel that is set to activate randomly. It sounds pretty good. If you want it to activate at specific times you can map the sound to a function key. My new Y6b has it and I was messing with it today.

I can't imagine it would be too difficult to rig up a concealed speaker near a tight curve on the layout, then use some kind of optical or resistance detection device to trigger the sound when a train approaches.

This article on Railroad.net...
http://www.railroad.net/articles/modelrailroading/detectors/index.php

...deals with an audible defect detector for an HO layout, but you could record some flange squeal somewhere and use that instead of the "No Defects" message.

Never being satisfied with what I have, I think the Tsunami Heavy Steam is an excellent decoder. That being said, I wish there were at least three more sounds involved. Cylinder cocks, power reverse and the drumming of an oil fire to accompany the firebox flicker.
I'm very familiar with the rail "creaking" as a heavy engine slowly moves along. Flange squeal and rail creaking at low speeds would be neat.

Notch16 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It brings up a point about sound.
>
> One modeler I know, a very good one, hates sound.
> Mostly because a bunch of HO-scale models with
> small speakers, all running at once in a large
> room, create an unfocused cacophony. Anyway, I'd
> say that's what bugs my friend because it bugs me
> too.
>

I agree with you to a point. I think sound decoders are a great addition to our hobby. All my engines are sound-equipped. I agree that a number of sound engines running at the same time can be overwhelming. A solution in a club environment would be to have a rule or agreement to keep sound volume at a certain level for everyone's enjoyment. The problem (in my opinion) is that many modelers are not familiar with how to adjust the volume settings on their engines. What makes it worse is that many decoders are set at the factory at their highest volume level. To help my club I've done a lot of on-line research and printed out page after page of manuals for different decoders to help decipher the volume settings. The industry could make it easier by publishing clearer instructions in their manuals and not make it so hard to find them. Another big help would be if the industry (perhaps through the NMRA) could standardize CV settings for volume adjustments and consisting like they did with the address CV. As it is now, when a club member brings in a sound-equipped engine, we need to figure out which make/model decoder is in the locomotive and then go to the manual and search for the appropriate CV settings. It would be great if they were all the same and more user-friendly. I know...getting model manufacturers to agree on something is like herding squirrels, but there are only a handful of decoder manufacturers and this ain't rocket science.

Sound adds a great dimension to the models, and one of it's biggest attributes is that it makes you operate more prorotypically.

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> Sound adds a great dimension to the models, and
> one of it's biggest attributes is that it makes
> you operate more prorotypically.

I just came back from a weekend-long run session, and I found that while sound is pretty cool at first, it is entertaining only for about the first 25 minutes. After that, like BobZ says, it just became a discordant cacophany of noise.

At that point, I enabled the mute function on all the sound units that I had control over, and peace returned to the op session. Most of my fellow operators felt the same way. Also, I usually turn down the volume a fair amount from the default factory volume already.

On future diesel purchases, I am skipping sound for nearly all and going with silent decoders. IMHO, the only place where sound was best employed were on switchers in the yard. Idling units? Nein danke. I'll have to program them to go mute after 30 seconds of inactivity.


Cheers,
Harry

Hamltnblue Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Broadway Limited Paragon 2 loco's have the wheel
> flange squeel that is set to activate randomly. It
> sounds pretty good. If you want it to activate at
> specific times you can map the sound to a function
> key. My new Y6b has it and I was messing with it
> today.

I am not sure if I follow you on randomly maybe it is with the Paragon 2. However on my first run of Paragon units, running with NCE DCC System, Function 7 would would bring up this sound which is nice for going on curves. Also if you decelerated too quickly it would come on as well.

Greetings,

I have installed a few of the Fantasonics (http://www.fantasonics.com/store/store.html) sounds on a friends layout, the babbling brook, forest sounds and things like that and they work great. The key is not have them to loud, what you want is to just barely hear them so they fall in to the back ground. the brook one has two speakers under the creek and what you hear as you run your train by is running water splashing off of rocks and such. The woods are bird calls, insect buzzes and things like that. When set up right you only hear the sounds of the local where you are at not the ones from across the layout. So if you got a recording of a squealing wheel and set up a light sensor that detects a train to trigger the sound and then kept it kind of low key it would work just fine.

Andre