Are most locomotive sounds realistic, really?

[markpierce]

I keep having an internal debate with myself.  Other than bells, horns, and whistles, etc., are the locomotive/engine noises realistic?  It "hears" to me that the volume (as well as the revolutions for diesel engines), etc. are merely a function of speed rather than the effort being exerted.  For instance, the sound of a locomotive accelerating, working on a grade, drifting, etc. differs greatly for any given speed.  Are there sound decoders that adjust automatically for changes in locomotive effort?  If not, I'll wait out this locomotive sound business rather than spend money and effort creating "unrealism."

Mark

[richg1998]

Define realistic? What might be realistic fo0r you might not be realistic for others. This is a hobby to have fun, i.e. play with trains.

My Tsunami steam decoders do not have diesel sounds so I am happy. 

Rich 

[markpierce]

Define realistic? What might be realistic fo0r you might not be realistic for others. This is a hobby to have fun, i.e. play with trains.

My Tsunami steam decoders do not have diesel sounds so I am happy. 

Rich 

I thought I did.  The sound should correspond with locomotive effort, or lack thereof, not just speed.

Mark

Mark

[markpierce]

Rich, steam locomotives going "chug, chug, chug" on a downgrade or coasting to a stop is, to me, like placing O-scale figures on an HO-scale layout when not filming Invasion of the Giants.  To each his own.  I just wanted some information, not a debate, thank you.

Mark

[markpierce]

Thanks, Dave.

Mark

[tomikawaTT]

The least realistic sound in modeling is the sound of a steam locomotive battling a sustained grade:

• Prototype - A sustained roll of cannonfire that you don't hear so much as feel, from your teeth to your toenails - even at 150 meters' distance, on the opposite side of the gorge.
• Model (HO scale) - The high-pitched yap of an asthmatic chihuahua.

This isn't anyone's fault.  It's simply that the laws of physics dictate that a speaker the size of a quarter CAN'T produce the volume and quality of sound generated by the sudden expansion of exhaust steam from a 550mm x 660mm cylinder blasting through a venturi big enough to pass a dinner plate.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those benighted souls who won't settle for a shot glass full of sound when I really want a gallon jug.  So, my steam (and diesel, and motors) pretend they're submarines - and run silent.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - quietly)

[markpierce]

Unfortunately, I'm one of those benighted souls who won't settle for a shot glass full of sound when I really want a gallon jug.  So, my steam (and diesel, and motors) pretend they're submarines - and run silent.

Yes!! Somehow the imagined is more realistic than the poorly immitated.

Mark

[Paul3]

Mark,
I know QSI and Soundtraxx Tsunami decoders both have this feature (and others may, too, but I don't know for certain).

What you can do is adjust the momentum effects so as to simulate realistic loads.  When running light engine, you'd adjust these to be rather low.  When pulling a small train, you'd increase CV3 and CV4 to give it more "mass".  Higher numbers in CV3 and CV4 = more weight simulated. 

Now that you've got these set up, to start a train, you notch the throttle out.  The engine sounds rev up, yet the train remains stationary because of CV3.  Eventually, the train will start to move.  During this time, you can rev the sound up or down with the throttle and as long as you don't reduce it to too low, the train will continue to accelerate.

After you've got the train rolling, you come to a downgrade.  At this point, you can reduce throttle as you're moving downgrade and the loco sounds will lessen and quiet down (the Tsunami features siderods clanking at this point).  Meanwhile, the train is still moving because of momentum in CV4.  Hopefully, you've put enough into CV4 to simulate the rolling characteristics of your train.

It's either that, or go with manual notching.

Paul A. Cutler III
************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
************

[selector]

Unfortunately, I'm one of those benighted souls who won't settle for a shot glass full of sound when I really want a gallon jug.  So, my steam (and diesel, and motors) pretend they're submarines - and run silent.

Yes!! Somehow the imagined is more realistic than the poorly immitated.

Mark

Mark, we have talked about this on a quite a number of threads since I joined the forum.  Some folks don't just find the sound unrealistic, it is nothing short of teeth shattering for them...it sounds awful, and nothing currently available in an HO engine can change that.  Others, like myself, are quite taken with the attempt, and are satisfied.  However, in recognition that all those tiny speakers yapping away within 3 meters of the closest engine don't sound very good, we often mute those not being used.  Otherwise it's just a cacophony of noise, and to be frank, I find it quite unpleasant.  I try to keep it to one diesel, and perhaps two steamers for ambient noise. 

The only significant chuff problem I have is on my first BLI engine, the earlier Hudson.  It doesn't have the BEMF function, so it lurches to a quicker start.  Not only that, the chuffs fall out of synch, and are non-adjustable, after about 20 scale mph.  All my other engines work quite well once I adjust them for chuff.  As for sound volume overall, I reduce all my engines to between 40and 60% of their max.  I do like the "sound of power" that QSI has, and I do enjoy the rod clank when I throttle down the engines with the Tsunami.

I would guess that someone who has spent a good deal of time near steam engines would be generally disappointed with the current HO onboard sound.  My hope is that we will find a relatively simple and inexpensive way to improve it.  Maybe we could all chip in a few bucks and ask Bose's research labs to do it for us.

-Crandell

[markpierce]

I hear you.  But Crandell, do your steam engines still chug/chuff when coasting or going downhill?

Mark

[johncolley]

First of all there is the difference due to speaker size and resonance in the small cavities we are talking about. Listen to a loco with a soundtrax decoder, then listen to the same No. on their website soundbites through your computer's speakers and you will begin to see the problem. That said compare the BLI/QSI "sound of power" when you add throttle for a hill. or are just accelerating up a couple of notches on the throttle, to the other sound systems. I happen to like the outputs of both Loksound and Soundtraxx.  To me, at least, the presence of sound makes me want to operate realistically, and I just don't have that feeling of satisfaction with silent running anymore.

[selector]

I hear you.  But Crandell, do your steam engines still chug/chuff when coasting or going downhill?

Mark

Yes, they do, Mark.  But I should make it clear that if I am running at track speed, whether on level track or a grade (up or down), and then reduce the throttle setting substantially, the engine will drift properly with both the QSI's and the Tsunamis.  If you make no further adjustment, then, when the engine settles at its new throttle-enabled speed, it will resume chuffing.  I can live with that. 

If I leave the throttle alone, whatever my engines were doing on the flats they'll also do on the descent, and I don't necessarily hear a change in the stack talk.  I guess we could/should, and that is one of your beefs.  David seems to addressed this matter.

-Crandell

[wjstix]

Unfortunately, I'm one of those benighted souls who won't settle for a shot glass full of sound when I really want a gallon jug.  So, my steam (and diesel, and motors) pretend they're submarines - and run silent.

Yes!! Somehow the imagined is more realistic than the poorly immitated.

Mark

The only significant chuff problem I have is on my first BLI engine, the earlier Hudson.  It doesn't have the BEMF function, so it lurches to a quicker start.  Not only that, the chuffs fall out of synch, and are non-adjustable, after about 20 scale mph.  All my other engines work quite well once I adjust them for chuff.  As for sound volume overall, I reduce all my engines to between 40and 60% of their max.  I do like the "sound of power" that QSI has, and I do enjoy the rod clank when I throttle down the engines with the Tsunami.

I would guess that someone who has spent a good deal of time near steam engines would be generally disappointed with the current HO onboard sound.  My hope is that we will find a relatively simple and inexpensive way to improve it.  Maybe we could all chip in a few bucks and ask Bose's research labs to do it for us.

-Crandell

You can add the QSI upgrade chip to add BEMF - my Hudson was one of the first run which came from the factory with BEMF before the lawsuit forced them to remove it. You can set the momentum CV's on the Hudson but it can be hard, you might need a "booster" to able to do it on most DCC systems. I know with my Digitrax I can change some of it's CV's but not all.

Also, IIRC a couple of reviews of the Hudson at the time it came out said that the "chuff" rate was intentionally set to fall behind the wheel rotation after the engine reached a certain speed. It was felt by BLI or someone that if you kept the chug rate a constant four chugs per rotation that at high speed you wouldn't be able to hear the individual chugs - it would just be kind of a roar - so they set it so at higher speeds there are fewer chugs per rotation. (Not saying I agree with their thinking, but that was the idea!)

[selector]

I believe I read that comment myself.  I suppose it is plausible, but it's still a head-shaker for anyone who has seen real video or watched a steamer at speed.  They sound like very loud sewing machings, but you can still detect the barks individually.

I still like the model. It looks good and tracks well.  The rest of its sound performance is as good as I have come to expect from QSI.

-Crandell

[Scarpia]

I don't think the sounds they produce are that accurate. for the reasons as given. Interestingly, they sound better at low speed than high (where the mechanical sounds tend to drown them out).

I guess the queston on realism might be better phrased. Are the sounds realistic enough.  Most folks don't run live steam on their HO layouts that burn real coal, or feed their O scale diesels actual diesel fuel. We don't have live grass on the lawns of our layouts (well, ok, the Garden Scale guys may do all the above), nor do most of us have actual running water on the layout. Like it or not, this hobby is for the most part one of approximations, including sound.

I personally like them, and intend on making my entire fleet sound equipped (eventually).  When I went to DCC, to me there was no turning back - and I feel the same way with sound.

It adds a fun factor that I like, even if it's just the on demand whistle or bell. As my fleet of sound equipped locomotives grow, I can see how the noise factor can get annoying, so final layout will have kill switches for some sidings and the roundhouse, in order to not keep things "cooking".

Cheers 

[jdcolombo]

I'll a a note from a N scaler. I model the NKP during the last days of steam (say 1957 or so). I never had the urge to add sound to my steam engines until I bought a sound-equipped Challenger (obviously not NKP, but the Clinchfield ran them, so I sometimes have a pretend lease of a Clinchfield). Although it doesn't sound anything like a real steam engine, hearing the chuffs, bell and whistle just added a dimension to modeling that I found compelling. As a result, I've since converted my N-scale Berks and Mikes and even most recently two Walthers 0-8-0's with Tsunami sound decoders.

The real advantage of sound for me is that it makes me pay more attention to realistic speeds. No more 40 mph switching moves with the 0-8-0's now that I hear the chuffs. I can now tell by sound alone how fast the Berks are going on the mainline; and I don't run them faster than 60 smph, even though they'll go about 120 at the upper end of the throttle.

So even in N scale, I've found sound compelling - so much so that when I'm running a trio of GP9's, I seriously miss the sound effects (but I haven't yet figured out how to cram a speaker and DCC decoder in these units; newer N scale modern diesels, however, can be fitted with an MRC sound board, which I haven't heard in person).

And yes, the Tsunami decoders do adjust their sound output for "working hard" uphill vs. drifting downgrade, though I don't have much of a grade on my layout (neither did the NKP, at least on its main from Chicago to Buffalo; the St. Louis and Peoria divisions were much different).

John C.

[Jake1210]

I hear you.  But Crandell, do your steam engines still chug/chuff when coasting or going downhill?

Mark

 

I think its time that someone invented a coasting function. It would replace the 'working' steam chuffs with the sound of air getting sucked into/blown out of the cylinders when that particular function key is pressed. I think they can find room for it in the new NMRA 24 (I believe it is 24...) function standard.

How ever, I find that a sound locomotive is more fun than a non sound one. (And potentially more attractive to my little cousin, whom I'm trying to move out of the realm of Thomas and into prototype railroading.) So I will deal with what is available now.

[Texas Zepher]

I hear you.  But Crandell, do your steam engines still chug/chuff when coasting or going downhill?

I think its time that someone invented a coasting function. It would replace the 'working' steam chuffs ...

Actually it was "invented" in the 1970s.  The PFM sound units had an adjustment for exhaust "cut off".  This adjustment let one simulate a locomotive chuffing harshly aganist a load or grade all the way down to  a very mild almost exhaling sound for just drifting along down grade or no load through they yard.  The PFM unit also allowed one to adjust the tone of the chuff.  How prototypical it sounded was limited only by the ears of the operator.   To some people a chuff is a chuff.

I believe now that we have gotten MTH's fingers out of the DCC back emf area, that this should be very easy to do with modern technology.  Have the decoder sense the current draw of a no load locomotive and then use the additional loads on the motor to adjust the harshness of the chuff appropriately. 

P.S. There are certain brass locomotives that have coasting drives too.  Stop them on a hill and turn off the power and they will roll away.

[markpierce]

 ... now that we have gotten MTH's fingers out of the DCC back emf area, that this should be very easy to do with modern technology.  Have the decoder sense the current draw of a no load locomotive and then use the additional loads on the motor to adjust the harshness of the chuff appropriately. 

Let us hope so!

Mark

[camarokid]

The simple answer to your question is NO!  Not until someone comes up with a cheap ($20 or less) way to hook it up to your home stereo system with 20 inch woofers!  Then you can turn the volume up and down with the engine.  Personally I have one engine each of steam and diesel with sound and that's enough for me.  Ain't it great!!!  Have fun working this dilema out.

Archie

[Rick Martin]

Thought I'd add my .02 cents worth on the sound question. It's true that most sound equipped engines in HO don't sound especially good simply due to the limitatations of small speaker size mixed with large layout size. That being said, I think most manufacturers have at least made a credible effort. I have several BLI steam and Atlas and BLI diesels that sound fairly good. I think sound is where you find it and whether you are satisfied easily or not. Years ago the only sound we had available was PFM's sound and throttle and the hobby shop I worked in didn't carry it but another shop in town did. A few of my customers bought it and liked it until the novelty wore off. I knew one guy who only turned it on when he had company, possible to drown out his guests. RickM