Hello everybody,
I know I have been living under the DC rock or boulder for the past 5 years.
A couple of weekends past I went to the open house from http://www.yorkrailwaymodellers.ca/. This is a beautiful, large layout that is DC and represents a era when steam was still king on the rails but diesels had started their invasion. The rolling stock was nicely weathered and created a stark contrast with Rapido's clean "Canadian".
Knowing that there was another layout next door which represents the modern era, I thought I would go for a quick visit there as well. There were a few very friendly gentlemen working on the layout, one that showed me the latest in Sound Technology, WOW. It was possible to hear the engine notch up, as the train started moving. While switching it was very noticeable as the sound went through the notches up and down to move cars and also how the engines throttled up when they went up the helix. It must sound great when a EMD and GE locomotive are working a train together.
This demonstration has got me thinking about also going DCC on the next layout and slowly converting my engines to sound.
Frank
"If you need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm."
So, Frank, what are you waiting for?
Rich
Alton Junction
Before you jump and buy, do a lot of research. There are many variables to DCC and sound. Decoders and controllers are continually evolving.
There are cable connect sets, wireless controllers. Different brands.
TCS WOW decoders seems to be at the forefront right now with sound decoders from many of the postings I see in different forums. TCS has a nice stay alive option. Another discussion.
SoundTraxx Tsunami, LokSound and Digitrax have been quite nice.
LokSound and Digitrax, you can develop your own sounds and upload them to the decoder. Not so with Tsunami decoders. No telling what SoundTraxx has in the pipeline but they will have to do something.
You will see many opinions on different brands of decoders and controllers. I doubt there is a Best, only what you like best.
Modifying locos will be quite a discussion.
Good luck. It will be a interesting journey. Just remember, keep the sounds to maybe a couple feet as too many sounds will be confusing. We are full scale. HO scale is considerably smaller.
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Some years back, I was hit with a double whammy. I was strictly a diesel modeler, from the silent era. Then, I walked into my LHS when he was demoing a Proto 0-6-0 switcher with sound. Before I left, I'd asked him to order me one. I had caught a case of Steam and a case of Sound at the same time.
There is, of course, no known cure. So, I now have a dual-era layout and most of my engines are sound equipped. It works for me.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasley Some years back, I was hit with a double whammy. I was strictly a diesel modeler, from the silent era. Then, I walked into my LHS when he was demoing a Proto 0-6-0 switcher with sound. Before I left, I'd asked him to order me one. I had caught a case of Steam and a case of Sound at the same time. There is, of course, no known cure. So, I now have a dual-era layout and most of my engines are sound equipped. It works for me.
They were bankrupting me with their displays and demonstrations of new locos and rolling stock.
I would walk in to buy sound ballast or ground cover or flex track and walk out with $600 worth of sound locos and over priced rolling stock.
richhotrainI would walk in to buy sound ballast or ground cover or flex track and walk out with $600 worth of sound locos and over priced rolling stock. Rich
Rich,
WOW! And you said, Michael, (Motley) does not listen,to your, financial advice. Just a Thought!
Cheers, Your Friend.
You can say all you want about added realism in operations and the sound of engines winding up at different rates in mis-matched consists, but it all really comes down to one thing.
We missed blowing the whistle like we did with our Lionels. Sound brings that back. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Why should I be? When I blow a whistle, I'm 8 years old again.
zstripe richhotrain I would walk in to buy sound ballast or ground cover or flex track and walk out with $600 worth of sound locos and over priced rolling stock. Rich Rich, WOW! And you said, Michael, (Motley) does not listen,to your, financial advice. Just a Thought! Cheers, Your Friend. Frank
richhotrain I would walk in to buy sound ballast or ground cover or flex track and walk out with $600 worth of sound locos and over priced rolling stock. Rich
da_kraut This demonstration has got me thinking about also going DCC on the next layout and slowly converting my engines to sound.
Ya, why wait?? You can get several "starter" DCC sets that are all in one box, like the Digitrax Zephyr. It includes a controller so you don't need a separate throttle. NCE and CVP make similar ones with two controllers built in, so you can run two trains at once.
You take the two wires you currently have going to the DC output of one of your power packs (if you have more than one), and connect the two wires to the track output terminals of the DCC box. Now you can run DCC engines on your current layout...well, once you have an engine with a DCC decoder.
p.s. You don't have to convert all your engines to sound all at once. You could start out getting a couple of "plug and play" non-sound decoders ($20 each, more or less) and convert two engines. That way, you could learn about DCC without all the extra issues of setting sound volumes etc.
Plus once you do add sound, you don't have to do every engine. With diesels, I find it's OK to run say two GPs together, with only one sound-equipped.
Hello Everyone,
thank you for all your replies and advice. All the insight and information is greatly appreciated. When it comes time to convert the locomotives to sound a lot more questions about the different products will be posted on this site. I much prefer to ask all of you about your opinions then read the evaluation in a magazine. Magazines make a lot of money with product advertisement which can bias the evluation.
As to why there is no layout, moved to a farm. This means that before a layout is build the building to house the layout has to be build, as well as a barn, machine shed, fields cultivated, fences installed, etc. In another couple of years questions regarding layout design will be posted. Looking forward to seeing the trains roll again.
Thank you
MisterBeasleyWe missed blowing the whistle like we did with our Lionels. Sound brings that back. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Why should I be? When I blow a whistle, I'm 8 years old again.
I want my playable Whistle!
And to the main topic - DCC sound is just now catching up with the quality of the PFM, GBL, and Grizzly Mountian sound systems of the late 1970s and 80s.
Everyone says that, but I don;t see how it's totally true. Speakers weren't as good, you werre superimposing the sound over the DC track power, fine as long as no pulse power was in use. The chuffs were just white noise broken up by the cam on the loco, not actual chuff recordings that all decent sound decoders use, the whistle wasy synthesized with a tone generator, not recorded from an actual locomotive, and on the PFM original system, even the bell was synthesized. On the PFM II, they used bell recordsings and air pumps, and so forth, and played those off the tapes. I'm kind of surprised your tapes still work, since they were continuous loop and ran past the head (gradually wearing away the tape material) as long as the system was on. Gotta love an old school reverb though, they actually worked - speaker, spring, and mike. They did have an option to connect a big speaker under the layout for bass, with the higher frequencies coming from the loco - that was probably MUCH better.
Pretty much any sound decoder you buy today, all the sounds in it are recorded from real locomotives. Nothing is synthesized. Some you can even fix up with your own sounds, like I did with my Reading T1's. The air pump, bell, and whistle that came with it were somewhat generic ones, possibly not even off a US loco (but they were real sounds, not synthesized). A fellow modeler made available recordings he made of one of those locos when it was AFT 1, so now I have the actual bell, whistle, and air pump sounds that belong on the prototype loco.
Playable whistles do need some work, not all DCC systems can even support this option, and none of the decoders really handle it the right way. The latest Loksound diesel horns work pretty nicely with the playable effect, and the new TCS WOW steam decoders do a decent job on steam whistles. They also fully adjust the chuffs based on the actual load on the loco. DCC sound decoders have long supported cams to make sure the chuffs are truly synchronized, but most of the OEM model leave this off. Definitely improves the realism when the chuffs happen at the correct point, not just the proper number per driver rotation at any old spot of the rods.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.