recorded sounds for decoders

[srr90]

Hi I am with the Strasburg Railroad club and we are finally going to dcc.We want to get sounds as close as possible to the engines but not finding anything.I had heard that some where you can use your own recordings to put into the sound decoders so my question is,is  there a business who does that for people?Any help would be great,I spent about 15 minutes on soundtraxx and QSI,but no whistles or bells are close except for engine 475,an NW 4-8-0.

Thanks Jeff

[PennCentral99]

Digitrax has a system that interphases with your computer and can do that.  Here's the link:

http://www.digitrax.com/prd_compint_pr3.php

[Graffen]

If you decide to use ESU Loksound decoders and their own programmer, the "Lokprogrammer", you can create any sound-files you need for a loco.

If you use the audio-edit programme; "Audacity" (wich is free to download),  there is no limits but the quality of your own recordings!

The file format used is .wav

 

(I would not recommend anything else, as the sound quality of LokSound is in my opinion in the lead today. The Loksound 4.0 is probably the best sound decoder ever made up until today!)

 

[rrinker]

 I'm not aware of anyone offering this service, the sound decoder makers generally go out themselves to obtain their recordings.

 TO be able to program your own sounds youw ill need to stick with Loksound decoders for top quality or Digitrax for ok quality. QSI and Tsunami do not allow custom sounds - QSI allows reprogrammign the sounds but only with complete sets of sounds that they offer. Loksound is the only high quality sound decoder that allows you to replace sounds with your own.

 If you can live with the chuff sounds in one of their decoders, it's not terribly difficuly to get recordings of the auxiliaries like pump, injector, bell, whistle, and dynamo. Hardest part is usually getting railroad permission to climb around and record. For just the auxiliaries you don't really need to climb on the locos, nor does it have to be moving. A good noise cancling mic with a wind shield on it and a boom can be used to get soild recordings of those sounds right fromt eh ground.

 To get the chuffs recorded is a lot more complciated. It's somewhat easier with a diesel because they can do static load tests and run through all 8 notches under laod withotu moving, but you can't do that with a steam loco. Getting a mic in position and keeping it there for an entire trip is goign to be a bit of a task and definitely requires the permission and cooperation of the railroad.  Not to mention you won't really get labored chuffs over the standard Strasburg run, the grade isn't that hard on the larger locos. However your model of the railroad would also not require heavy labored lugging either. You may not need to do anythign about this anyway, chuffs are much more generic than the appliances, so the stock sounds may be fine once you repalce the pump and whistle sounds.

                           --Randy

 

[richg1998]

Realize that some decoder companies generate sounds digitally. Some use real sounds. Sound samples you hear on your PC speaker might sound different in the model loco. This is a subjective issue.

Some sound decoders can be modified quite a lot like the Tsunami to improve what you hear.

There are Yahoo DCC groups for these sound decoders where they go deep into this.

The Tsunami is WYSIWYG but the reverb CV's allow to do a lot of fine tuning.

LokSound you can upload quite a lot in the way of sounds.

If you are not very familiar with DCC sound, I suggest you do a bunch of homework first. This is not plug and play.

Rich