Hi all,
I'm planning on doing a DCC and sound installation for a Westside/Mizuno NYC J3a Super Hudson. For those that have done DCC and sound installations in their New York Central steam engines, what decoders and what settings would you recommend? I've put TCS-Wow into a couple locos and liked it a lot, but not sure if they have a whistle for the NYC Hudsons but Soundtraxx Tsunami2 sounds excellent as well. I saw a video where someone put one into a Westside NYC J3a Super Hudson.
Thank You in Advance,
Alvie
Hi Alive.
In my honest opinion I personally want to standardize on brands of decoders. But I do have a mix of Loksound, TCS WOW, and Tsunami. They each have their good and not so good. Sound is very subjective and something that would sound great to me could sound like a coffee grinder to someone else. Steam whistles are one item with a million variables. From the hand of the engineer to the mechanic who assembled it, steam pressure, valve porting, and so on. Environment is a huge variable we can't control. Our little layouts are very different than the great outdoors.
If you're comfortable with using a WOW then that would be your best bet, but it doesn't hurt to try another brand.
Pete.
Probably the most noticeable thing with the sound of the Hudson (or any steam engine) is going to be the whistle. You could check the manufacturer's websites, some have sounds based on actual railroad's whistles. For example I put a WowSound decoder in a Great Northern engine because it had "Great Northern six-chime" as one whistle option. It could be a manufacturer has an actual NYC whistle in it's decoder's options. Otherwise, you can search around online to find videoclips with Hudsons where you can hear the whistle, and try to find the decoder with a whistle that's close to the NYC one.
The BLI/QSI combo of yesteryear was surprisingly close. Alas, I just had a P4 decoder (with cap) installed in my 17 year old Niagara. The QSI's light output began to act up. But I loved their sound files.
This is quite close. I urge you to listen to the information in the commentary about how much ash and unburnt coal went up the stack on a typical Hudson.
Also (I can't help myself...), the video has a lot of tone added to it by virtue of at least two photo bombs by S1b Niagaras. The QSI sound files for the BLI examples were pretty much identical. I don't know if this helps.
"Hudsons Along the Hudson" DVD by Sunday River Productions - YouTube
Thank you for the responses everyone. Sorry I meant to respond sooner but got pre-occupied with other things. I did get a Soundtraxx TSU-2200 yesterday and sadly while working on installing it, it blew. My first impressions were that it sounded pretty good and while doing a motor test while attached to a speaker sounded good in motion too. But then, I heard a pop sound and the smoke poured out! I don't know exactly what had happened, but I'll send to Soundtraxx for service soon. I got it from an authorized dealer so that should be covered.