I read the article in the Feb MR and I can see that some people might be able to add a level of romance to their railroad with music. However, even if I were able to find a decent recording of Camp Town Ladies, Clementine, and Blue Tail Fly, I’d probably go nuts in under 20 minutes.
However, the idea of putting a couple saw-sound generators in my saw mill has some appeal. What also has some appeal is putting a planer sound in my planing shed. And when I have been in the redwoods the two predominate sounds were water when it was around and wind in the tree tops. Of course, these sounds don’t exist.
So just as we have Digitrax Decoders that will play 3rd part sound samples, we need programmable sound generators.
I believe that sound will take railroad modeling to the next level. George Lucas believed that sound was 60% or the theater goers experience and developed sound systems that are now common place in our homes. IF done tastefully, ambient sound can add a lot to a layout.
Short clip digital recorders are actually quite commonly available. Most are usually designed to activate one playback cycle every time the button is pushed, but that’s easy enough to work around.
You looking for a real recording of Camptown Ladies, or the verson as performed in Blazing Saddles? [:D]
Where are these short clip recorders availible from and what is the price range? I’m thinking i might be wanting more than once play capabilities, but something might be worked out. I also want to keep time/expenses down.
I’m thinking I’m not looking for any recording of Camptown Ladies.
I think that is one of the those things that I predicted might happen with DCC when someone posted a thread about coming trends in the next few years in MRRing. Actually, I think I said that stationary decoders could be programmable (like an EPROM) to run or automate businesses like sawmills and coal mines, or even traffic. I hadn’t considered the sound aspect that you’ve suggested. Hmm. Things could be a change in this hobby pretty fast…
Ambient sound, as opposed to operational sound, doesn’t need digitrax, since it can be continous.
You can, if you have the skills (or if your music downloading young 'uns do) you can easily record the sounds you want and burn them to a CD or load them into an Ipod. then attach a portable CD player or the Ipod to a speaker sysytem
Audacity is an excellent “open source” sound editing program which is competitive with the more expensive commercial programs which are several hundred dollars
At this point I am still bulding the layout and will likely stick with DC but I do plan have forest sounds etc playing in bg from the system I have described I should note that I have worked in broadcasting for 30 years and currently produce multimedia news presentations for the web, but simply burning or downloading what is called in the business “natural sound” is fairly easy, no different from downloading music.
I use “Cool Edit”, the program that is now called Adobe Audition now that it has been bought out. I could burn a CD, but I’m more interested in sounds that come from the saw mill, plane shed, engine house at low levels that can only be heard when you are in very close proximety.
Oh, my god, Mark Newton was right! I’m creating Disneyland.
I’d still use a CD or IPod. If the mill can be removed from the layout or if there is foam hill nearby you could install one or two small cheap speakers in the location.
I don’t know if they are still available but I used to see very small “toy” speakers in dollar stores that were cheap but still produced nice sound that would be easily hidden in an either an HO or N scale layout. If for example, the sawmill is removable. you could install the speaker underneath the footprint. Or you could hollow part of the hill, install the speaker and then replace the scenary.
Some years ago I picked up a small electronic reminder for a few bucks at Wal-Mart. The original intent for its use was to alert family members when they were near it, because it has a motion sensor. (“Keep away from them cookies!”)
I found on the Net a sound bite for a sawmill cutting a piece of wood, then the wood dropping to the floor with a clunk. I recorded this sound into the unit - it only records 10 seconds or so - and it does work. I intended to place the unit (it’s about the size of an Ipod) just below the front of my modules so it would activate when visitors would pass by. Great idea, but I never followed through. My experience with sounds at train shows was there was too much ambient/crowd noise for people to hear such subtle sounds. I imagine it would work a lot better on a home layout.
Seems you could find an inexpensive or used mult-track device and record or download the sound clips onto separate channels, then “create” you own unique ambient sound onto a single MP3 player. I’ve recorded on MD (mini-disc) and had access to 4 separate channels.
The thing to be careful of is do make sure your sound clips DON’T all repeat at the SAME frequency or rate. That way it don’t sound like the cheap background crowd noise “loops” they used to use many years ago on TV when running the sports scores. One of the local news stations had one that had a whistle the repeated every 5 seconds on the nose. It got pretty comical after a while.
A couple of thoughts here. The CD players are relatively cheap, and have two channels. With a set of inexpensive “computer” speakers, one could burn a CD with your planner sounds on one channel, and the saw mill or water fall on the other. If mixed and spaced correctly, the burned CD could be looped to provide different but simultaneous sounds at different locations with the proper spacing of the speakers.
Radio Shack sells or used to sell a 10 or 20second recording play back module that you could load with a sampled sound clip for the desired location, saw mill, planner, waterfall, traffic or any other appropriate ambient sounds and triggered by a switch or a loop of some kind. There are a number of inexpensive pocket digital recorders on the market that could be used to capture your sound clips for use in the CD creation or downloading into the play back modules.
I can almost hear Mongo and his steed “tooting” off into the sunset. Dooh, dah, dooh dah.
Will
If you model the campfire scene with Smell-O-Vision, remind me NOT to come visit your layout…
As for the recorders, Radio Shack had one in with the (few) electronic parts they carry. They may have discontinued it though. And Bob mentioned WalMart, but I never looked there. There were devices sold as ‘note takers’ which should be pretty cheap, they have a record and playback button, and record a few seconds at most.
If you want to get fancy, you can use a computer with a sound card, and add a it of hardware to toggle various speakers on and off. You’d be limited to 2 simultaneous sounds, but you could have dozen of speaker sites. The program would activate a particualr set of speakers and play the appropriate sound. It’s probably possible to direct a sound to a specific speake in a surround-sound setup, like a better sound card or motherboard supports. If so, you might be able to do 4 or 5 simultaneous sounds in different locations. And none of that would so tax the computer that it couldn;t also be used for other purposes, such as JMRI.
The technology has advanced quite far beyond the message recorders. Joining this discussion group will give you a good perspective about what people are thinking and doing. Jack Burgess suggested an idea very similar to what the current Model Railroader article proposes in his article “Layout Sound Effects: the Fourth Dimension” in the October 1984. It’s a very good article.
buy these cheapie CD players, have a CD recorder, find some ambient sounds and loop them and put the player on continuous play. one sound one one channel, another sound on another.
and buy the cheapie powered speakers.
Just got a new Jameco catalog today - they also have a digital record/playback device listed in their kit section. Don’t have it in front of me to check the price though.