Pete, CV 121 controls whistle volume. Range is 0-64, default is 64. Give it a try, and I hope it helps.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
maxman locoi1sa: The Tsunamis are great sounding and the lighting is great but they tend to jack rabbit when starting. I can not get mine to crawl when starting. I have tried every trick in the book and more to get it to start smoothly. Have you tried using the speed tables instead of fooling with all those Kp and Ki settings that are not adequately explained to mere mortal model railroaders? I have done a bunch of speed matching of locos for a friend and using the speed tables makes the Tsunamis run just fine.
locoi1sa: The Tsunamis are great sounding and the lighting is great but they tend to jack rabbit when starting. I can not get mine to crawl when starting. I have tried every trick in the book and more to get it to start smoothly.
The Tsunamis are great sounding and the lighting is great but they tend to jack rabbit when starting. I can not get mine to crawl when starting. I have tried every trick in the book and more to get it to start smoothly.
Have you tried using the speed tables instead of fooling with all those Kp and Ki settings that are not adequately explained to mere mortal model railroaders? I have done a bunch of speed matching of locos for a friend and using the speed tables makes the Tsunamis run just fine.
I agree, I have had only one tsunami jerk at starts and it turned out to be a problem with the loco. After repairs and tweeking a few CV's it runs sweet now. All my Bachmann with OEM Tsunamis run sweet to no jerky starts here. At speed step 1 you can barly tell they are moving, but they are. and they are steam loco's
Truck.
I'll have to check the settings in my PCM steamers with Loksound, but my whistle is plenty loud. The default volume settings had chuff , bell, and 'random' sounds like the air letoff and so forth cranked way up and the whistle at like half volume. I readjusted so the whistle was the loudest and the aux sounds were lowest. I didn;t like the bell being louder thant he whistle, but after making a few adjustments to the volume CVs, now it's much more even and the whistle can be plainly heard. Overall master volume is not above the halfway point when runnign at home, MORE than loud enough in my 10x15 room. For shows I'll crank it up to max, in a public place there's too much background noise. I never installed an aftermarket one so I don't know how they come set, but the QSI in Broadway and the Loksound in PCM all came set WAY too darn loud for realistic sound.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Ken and Crandell.
The problem I have with the whistle volume is the only thing that has turned me off to the Loksounds Version 3.5. I can live with finding 100 ohm speakers. At home they are not too bad but put them on the modular in a large hall with hundreds of people and it is quiet as a church mouse. That is where the Select, version 4, Paragon 2, Blueline, soundtraxx and QSI shine. When the ambient noise is high I still love to hear the whistle at crossings.
Maxman.
Speed tables have been adjusted. It is the start is where I get the jump. It is a bother to me to see it jack rabbit to 1 or 2 scale MPH instead of crawling to a start. It makes it challenging to spot at the water plugs.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Three it is, Ken. I have no recollection of stopping the chuff sound that way, but I can't bo back and see for myself since I have all but my Trix Mikado put away for the time being. I, like you, love the motion control of the LokSounds. They are still Top Dog.
Crandell
Crandell using F 8 you can chose from 3 levels and turn the chuff sound off.
Ken
With QSI's for sure, and possibly for other sound decoders, the best approach to annoying sound volumes is to nearly halve the maximum CV value allowed for the Master Volume first....before any other sound fiddling. From that point, adjust others to suit your ear. I find the steam injector, blow down, and pervasive steam hiss sounds to be annoying, so I reduce them again, but individually. This takes a few minutes, folks, maybe three, including going into the booklet to recall which CV's are which and to recall the permissible range for them...the sounds are 1-15 only if I recall.
For the LokSound 3.5, for sure, it being the only one I have left for experience, raise the master volume to its max. From there you have to reduce all the others until you are happy. In the case of the whistle, I leave that at max.
IMPORTANT!!!! I believe the LokSound allows you to raise and lower the volume of the decoder by pressing F8. Or, there is a CV setting that allows you to control the volume in four discrete steps using taps of f8.
locoi1sa The Loksound version 3.5 has some good sound and fantastic motor control but the use of 100 ohm speakers and a whistle you can't hear unless your ear is next to the loco is detracting. horrible and the motor control was non existent. Pete
The Loksound version 3.5 has some good sound and fantastic motor control but the use of 100 ohm speakers and a whistle you can't hear unless your ear is next to the loco is detracting. horrible and the motor control was non existent.
Pete, I have two 3.5 in steam, Y6 b and Big Boy and I have no problem hearing the whistle! You can change the whistle volume. I don't know the CV's off the top of my head because I use decoder pro.
STeam, maybe Tsunami, but diesels, I will never buy another Tsunami. Horns are horrible and the inability to get the prime mover to 'load' before moving is really annoying and unrealistic. Granted my cab ride was in a slightly more modern SD50M, but the way the Tsunami EMD 567 behaves is NOTHIGN like the real thing, the QSI in an Atlas Trainmaster was much more like it. DecoderPro or not, I hate messing with speed tables, but it's almost required to speed match Tsunamis since they don't have CV6 for mid voltage like pretty much every other recent decoder on the market. What really shows is how far behind the curve Soundtraxx really is. The Tsunami was announced long before most of the other brands announced their second and sometimes even first generation decoders, yet finally arrived well after. They clearly show some design issues and features missing that happened between the initial design and final production. I find the QSI and Loksound decoders generally have the edge in most categories. Especially motor control.
ANd this whole 'QSI is synthesized thing' - I STILL can;t figure the source for this. Really? If QSI is synthesizing their sounds then why are they bothering to send crews out to make recordings? The first generation ones may have been, but the updated ships are NOT synthesized sounds, they do NOT use the same prime mover to be an EMD or GE or Alco or Baldwin, they are all different sounds.
locoi1sa The Tsunamis are great sounding and the lighting is great but they tend to jack rabbit when starting. I can not get mine to crawl when starting. I have tried every trick in the book and more to get it to start smoothly.
Hi all,
My thanks again for the excellent responses. I think I'll just go with the upgrade chip and of course twin HB speakers for now and in time upgrade to Tsunami decoders.
Alvie
I have just about one example of every sound decoder that has come on the market. Since I am a steam nut I can give you some good incite on what I have found.
The version 6 and 7 factory installed QSI decoders are fantastic. The QSI rev U is also a good decoder. The one I have is in a small switcher with a small speaker. It would benefit with a larger speaker but there is no room for it. Older QSI decoders will benefit with a chip upgrade.
The Loksound version 3.5 has some good sound and fantastic motor control but the use of 100 ohm speakers and a whistle you can't hear unless your ear is next to the loco is detracting. I recently installed a Loksound Select decoder in a brass loco with a medium oval speaker. This decoder is GREAT. It comes pre loaded with 4 prime mover selections, 16 whistles, and 2 different sounding bells. This allows you to customize the decoder without an expensive programer just by changing CVs. The motor control is Super! This loco can barely move smoothly on speed step 1. The Version 4 decoder is also a good sounding and super motor control but a programer is needed for sound changes.
The old Soundtraxx DS decoder was huge and needed a separate motor and light decoder. This is no longer available. The LC decoders were good and had good sound but motor control and LED lights gave them fits. The Tsunamis are great sounding and the lighting is great but they tend to jack rabbit when starting. I can not get mine to crawl when starting. I have tried every trick in the book and more to get it to start smoothly.
I tried an MRC sound decoder and ripped it out before it left the test track. The sound was horrible and the motor control was non existent.
The BLI Paragon 2 is decent but sounds tinny. The Blueline sound was better in my opinion. It also jack rabbits to the first speed step. The whistle volume is too loud and rattles the tender shells. The sound of power when the loco is pulling is a great feature and it is almost silent when drifting downgrade. These decoders are not available in the aftermarket.
Hope this helps.
I would agree that, pound for pound, a Tsunami is probably the go-to for a lot of us, and for good reason. As much as I have, both factory installed and post-market installation, QSI's, and as much as I really do like and enjoy them, they don't seem to have made a huge effort to make the same leap that Soundtraxx made between the DSD series and their Tsunami back in 2006. There were problems between MTH and QSI at the time such that all BLI steamers were 'clipped' so that they would not operate with BEMF. What that meant was that my first loco ever, the BLI J1 Hudson, came with a jerky start. Luckily, my next loco was a Lionel HO Challenger, and it's QSI was immune to the suit at the time.
Once the legal issues were resolved, QSI quickly marketed an update/upgrade chip that helped a lot. Included were refined and added sound files, but the installation tool was extra.
The QSI diesel in their Revolution series is very nice, but so is Tsunami's counterpart. So, to me, with their Revolution series QSI went a long way to catching up, matching that is, Tsunami, and not actually taking a leadership position. I hope that changes with the Titan. They will have to take that extra step to make us all look at each other with that knowing look....these guys are serious and have just set the pace.
My two cents.
At this point I have standardized on Tsunami and 2 speakers(high base if possible) on all installs. That is after trying several sound decoders from everyone but Loksound. And from what I've heard of others locos, there's wasn't that great. Tsunami's are real recordings, for example for the Big Boy whistle, they recorded a real Big Boy. It wasn't so good a couple of years ago and so they went out and re recorded. The Tsunami's are not user programmable as is the QSI.
QSI is supposed to be releasing a whole new technology using stereo recordings and reproduction. It will be called the Titan. I will try one of those, but the other QSI's I've installed will eventually be replaced by Tsunami's, unless the Titan is a lot better in which case I will use the Titan. A lot of QSI's sounds are synthesized as are most other sound chips. You can even see when you download their sound files that the prime mover is the same in a lot of cases. Also, if you don't have a QSI programmer you are limited to one or two whistles, unlike the Tsunami's which come with a variety.
You can listen to most sound files using the internet either directly from the manufacturer's site or youtube, etc.
I have also found that by standardizing, programming is easier even using Decoder Pro. That's because for me I don't have to remember how they are set up function wise, etc to start with.
Richard
Alvie I would try this site.
http://www.ulrichmodels.biz/servlet/StoreFront
Steve sales both QSI and Tsunami decoders. He seems to know his stuff! I have used him a few times and there customer services is nothing short of out standing! Heck, I had a defective Loksound 3.5 decoder and they had the replacement mailed before I had the bad one wrapped up!
So I have two BLI Js, one has no sound unit and another has the stock sound unit and speakers but I want both to have good sound systems. For the one with sound, I'm thinking of either upgrading the QSI chip and adding twin high-bass speakers parallel-wired of course. For the other, I've thought of going all out and putting in a Tsunami "Southern Steam" decoder with the same speaker arrangement. Though to upgrade the chip is way less than another decoder, I'd love to hear people's opinions on whether or not to just go ahead and upgrade both to Tsunami decoders for consistency.
Thanks in advance