BLI 2-8-0 Consolidation - says DC and DCC, but is it really?

[richhotrain]

CSX Robert

 

Overmod

...I have never understood the desire to have canned cab chatter, 'freight yard sounds', or ambient noises like farmyards or station PAs in other than toy trains... 

Truth be told, they're all toy trains. 

Yes, they are.

Rich

[n012944]

Overmod

I have never understood the desire to have canned cab chatter, 'freight yard sounds', or ambient noises like farmyards or station PAs in other than toy trains.  T 

 

 

This I agree with.  I will also add, I don't agree with the engine start up every time power is applied to the locomotive.  Locomotives spend their life idling away, not shutting down and being restarted.

[wjstix]

I suspect in the future we will see a growth in systems like BLI's "Rolling Thunder" where a sound-equipped engine has an onboard speaker but also generates a signal to a large 'under the table' speaker to create the deeper bass sounds.

I think it would also be possible using existing technology to set up a system where the engine itself is silent, but the sound is transmitted to a wireless set of headphones worn by the person controlling the engine. With transponding, you could in theory set it up so the sound would change based on how close or far away the headphones and/or walk-around controller is from the engine...and include a doppler effect for when the engine is moving towards you or away from you.

[Doughless]

Lastspikemike

MRC 1300 isn't clean enough power.

To complain that DCC sound isn't real enough is frankly ridiculous.  Sound doesn't  scale. Trains have really lousy sound, really lousy. Nobody wants real train sounds in their train room. No matter how much they think they do. QSI (or at least BLI) tried with Rolling Thunder which was as popular as a screen door in a submarine.

What DCC sound should deliver is the sense or idea of a train passing through. Not the real thing.

I also don't like little HO people, especially in my model locomotive cabs. That's me driving the train, not tiny plastic people. That's me dining in the dining car.

Who are we kidding here? 

 

You're getting to the point, but not there yet.  

We want to hear pleasurable sounds, not necessarily authentic sounds.  And a variety of sounds.  Not a steady constant white noise racket.

I can't stand the sound of an EMD turbo prime mover.  

I have a switching layout.  An EMD 567 PM emits a variety of sounds from idle, to rev up, to notching, to cruising, to power down, and back to idle.  Many times over in an OP session.

A variety of sounds. throw in a bell and a horn, and its even more.  All pretty authetic sounding too, but, a loco pulling 7 cars at 15 mph wouldn't produce much deep base rumble anyway, so the lack of it on my layout makes the sound pretty authentic.  And the 567, along with ALCO prime movers, are pretty pleasant sounding.

I can't imagine the horrid experience of having to listen to a EMD turbo prime mover cruising at a steady and monotonous 40 mph for 500 feet of mainline.

Once again, the type of layout we operate dictates different experiences.

And most experiences on this forum come from the 40 mph cruising train perspective. 

[gregc]

what should it sound like if you're a scale 261 ft (3' * 87) away?

don't low frequencies propogate better than high frequencies?

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

I'm going to position layout based bells, whistles and horns at logical locations. Some automated, some operator controlled.

Sheldon

[Doughless]

The sound depends upon the train, IMO.

There is a fairly busy mainline about 2000 feet from my house.  100 cars, two locos, sometimes a third loco in the middle if its  a longer train.  Big trains.

I can hear the rumble of the oncoming train long before it approaches the grade crossing and blows the horn.  I've gotten used to the ambient sounds of my quiet backyard changing as the train approaches.

I imagine a herd of 1000 buffalo stampeding across the prairie caused the ground to vibrate with specific harmonics, in a similar fashion.

I do not hear any exhaust or traction motor noise.

At the local landscape nursery, the Georgia jungle of foliage prevents me from seeing a train on the same tracks, and the commercial noise prevents me from hearing the train at all until its right there.  The tracks are literally about 60 feet away on the other side of a fence.  I hear no locomotive noise at all when its cruising at 40 -50 mph but hear low pitched rumble and high pitched squeaks of the entire train.

100 cars, two to three locos, how many tons is that vibrating the ground?

Railfanning the local industries, I mostly hear exhaust note and traction motor noise from the loco reving and such.  The loco does emit lower noises, probably from the PM vibration itself as it revs.

Of course, there is always wheel squeak of the cars.  Something that the model producers have not replicated.

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

gregc

what should it sound like if you're a scale 261 ft (3' * 87) away?

don't low frequencies propogate better than high frequencies?

 

Outdoors, not exactly, depends on a lot of factors.

Ever been to an outdoor concert without some sort of closed in stage? The bass sounds weak. But a street festival where the buildings act as wall, the base booms.

Too many variables, like my example above about tracks around here.

Sheldon

[selector]

BigDaddy

Sound is like single malt scotch.  If you think Cutty Sark is what scotch is supposed to taste like, you are not going to like Laphroig which tastes like CS soaked in peat moss.

I like sound, but it is not Laphroig or Dalwhinie...

Oooooooooh....you know I love it when you talk dirty. 

[selector]

Overmod

...

I have never understood the desire to have canned cab chatter, 'freight yard sounds', or ambient noises like farmyards or station PAs in other than toy trains.  There's certainly a place for meaningful or directed crew noises -- radio relevant to train movements, the double peep of trainline signal, even conductors calling 'board' at starting.  But those would require programming and recording beyond what current decoder makers seem to provide.

 

Me three.  I joked, in posts, maybe 12 years ago when some new decoders were announced with functions and sounds soaring into the stratosphere, that F24 would be the flushing of a toilet in a waiting room somewhere. F31 a seagull's squawk.

[selector]

gregc

what should it sound like if you're a scale 261 ft (3' * 87) away?

don't low frequencies propogate better than high frequencies?

 

Yes, and in the right circumstances, a person walking along tracks (almost certainly illegally...and unwisely) with their back to an on-coming locomotive will stand a poor chance of hearing it.  If there's loud flange squeal, and of course a bell or horn/whistle, that'll be different.  But people have been caught on bridges with nowhere to go but down when they didn't know a train, labouring fairly significantly, was about to cross the bridge.  The whistle might have given it away, but not the low thrumbing unless it's quiet.

For me, two things stand out for being near steamers, apart from heat and maybe some faint hissing:

a. the turbo-generator with its high-pitched whine; and

b. the pump(s) with its intermittent thump-clink, thump-clink.

About all I'll tolerate for any length of time when not actually running a locomotive are those two sounds.  And as Tom stated earlier, those neutral and activated sounds are all tuned for my tolerance and room, usually in the 40% of maximum range...or less, like the horrible injector and blow down sounds.  Yeesh.

[richhotrain]

BigDaddy

Sound is like single malt scotch.  If you think Cutty Sark is what scotch is supposed to taste like, you are not going to like Laphroig which tastes like CS soaked in peat moss.

If you want to save $60 or so, skip the Laphroaig and just burn peat moss with a cup of barley thrown in for good measure. You can learn to like gasoline if you drink it often enough.

Some time back, I got caught up in the effete snobberry of single malt scotch, blind tastings and all of that stuff, yada, yada, yada. Just buy a bottle of Chivas Regal and Drambuie. Now, you've got yourself a Rusty Nail.

Put on a tweed kilt coat with elbow patches, if you must. Drink one and all in the world is good. Have a second and a gilt starts to look good. If you dare, have a third, and sleep the night away.

DCC sound? It starts sounding good before you finish that first Rusty Nail.

Rich

[wjstix]

Lastspikemike

To my knowledge, no DCC sound decoder can reproduce the difference but perhaps my trains aren't heavy enough. Rapido's Royal Hudson does a decent job of the difference for a steam locomotive. I've not heard a diesel produce a similar difference.

Actually there are several decoders now that change the diesel sound when the engine is working hard, triggered by Back EMF I believe. However, it usually kicks in when a train is laboring going up a grade, but some will do it when starting a train.

[rrebell]

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

 

 

crossthedog

Before this becomes completely about something else (too late, right), I just thought I'd say thanks everyone for the information about this... and even your personal opinions on this. I don't think I'll have a compelling reason to run my new DCC loco on the DC system and thanks to this thread I can see compelling reasons NOT to.

When I'm in a sound mood I'll be able to run my Consolidation as the mainline power (freight or passenger), and drop cuts of cars for the RS-3 to come fetch off the siding, build into trains in the yard, and run up the branch to deliver in Priest River. Otherwise, I'll run my DC locos and I have ten power blocks to play with. Tickety-boo.

@Sheldon, I'm glad you said you find sound annoying after a while. I have experienced the same thing and felt guilty about it. I like the sounds, but it does start to get on my nerves and I thought maybe there was something wrong with me.

 

 

JDawg

I think we have the same dreams. That engine is like a temptress. Buy me sir, I can be all yours for less than you think. Still talking about the engine by the way.

 

 

Ha ha, yes JDawg. Well said.

 

-Matt

 

 

 

 

Matt, while I don't hold a degree in audiology, one of my other hobbies is building HiFi speaker systems.

It is well proven audio science that sounds that are tinny or lack full range are more likely to become irratating to our senses. 

The little speakers in our trains cannot reproduce sounds much below 200-300 Hz, and start lacking smoothness or fidelity way before getting that low. So the lack of base sounds, in program material that should have base sounds, can set your brain a little crazy, depending on your sensitivity to this issue - which differs widely among humans.....

But there is a measurably large percentage of people who have a problem with higher pitched chaotic sounds for any sustained amount of time.

Sheldon

 

Just to add to this discussion we all hear diferently just as we all see differently. From personal experience I had a terriable time with music in my youth because I could hear what I was told I could not and see better too. I remember seeing an eye doctor because my vision was changing (we all get older) and finding I had 20/20, I literly said this is normal vision, this sucks. As for my hearing I perpously did not wear ear protection in my 20's hoping to tone my hearing down, dumb right, but am lucky it did not work.