I was reading the DC-DCC thread and where there were references to sound quality, it got me thinking… We have had miniature high quality sound systems for a long time, well before DCC entered the picture. That is, these sound systems have been miniaturized over the decades for college dorm rooms, museum displays, office use, etc. We have sophisticated software that can manipulate digital sound data in ways that could easily replicate virtually any environment desired. Why should micro sound systems, such as are in DCC systems, be the norm, when several miniature speakers, computerized software applied to digital files and some computer ingenuity be all that it takes to have directed sound come from anywhere on a layout, with much higher quality? You could layer sounds so that a quiet woods is suddenly wakened by a nearby train passing by, or a suburban night’s calm is gently disrupted by the distant warning horn and wheel on steel sounds of a midnight freight passing several miles away, etc. It would seem to me that DCC wiring for operation is one thing, but the aural environments that could be had with more size-friendly equipment for sound on a layout would be quite another! Cedarwoodron
Ron,
The sound circuitry is there - it is the super small speakers needed to fit in our models. Larger speakers make all the difference!
The original PFM sound system used a ‘noisy’ diode to make the ‘chugging/hissing’ steam engine sound(no digital processing there). Current sound systems use actual recordings that are digitally processed with either 8 or 16 bit systems.
Your idea of multiple speakers around the layout is exactly what the Soundtraxx ‘Surroundtraxx’ system does. The limitation is that you need Digitrax ‘transponders’ to control the movement of the sound as your train passes through various area of your layout.
Jim
The technology to do all of that is available today. It is just up to a modeler to implement.
Surround Traxx for DCC train sounds. Sierra? Sound for DC. Then there is MAX Traxx - I don’t remember how it works.
For background sounds there are many such as Scale Magic, The MRC City Sounds and symphony 77, All the RAM sound modules, ITTC, etc. plus just throwing in a CD set to infinite loop.
The MRH of August 2011 had an article about this topic.
My issue with the Surround Trax is the cost… Last time I priced it out, for just for 6 zones (which is the minimum for a tiny layout) is over $800. Not to mention that it restricts ones to Digitraxx decoders in the locos (requires transponding).
Now I don’t know why someone hasn’t developed the same thing with the NMRA “standard” decoder RailCom feedback system.
I had another thought- you get about 6 very small speakers- those ones that are about 2-3 inches cubed, get Audacity free online, where you can layer multiple sound files into one master file, connect the speakers into a mixing board that you can get cheap at a pawn shop ( not sure about this step ) and then into a laptop with the program, then- with a library of appropriate sound files that can be added to, you have added sound to your layout without paying for micro-sized speakers on each locomotive, painstakingly wiring them in, hoping that you did everything right after the hood is back on the diesel. If you have access to a shortwave radio, you might get railroad chatter on it that - although analog- might be incorporated into the software files somehow. The speakers could be mounted as permanent or moveable ones around, above or alongside the layout and there you have it!!! My guess is that the whole thing could be done easily for about $100.00 tops. There are cheap speakers online, every pawn shop has those mixing boards, etc. Just a thought… Cedarwoodron
I guess you can forget the mixer- there is free online shareware that functions as a virtual mixer “Mixere” among others, where you don’t need a device to do the mixing. Cedarwoodron
To make this simpler, don’t worry about doing it like one big 8 channel tape. I don’t see a particular advantage to doing that and it’s work to put it together. MP3 players are dirt cheap, along with old computer speakers. You could even rip two different tracks, one on each side of the stereo signal. Just get things in MP3, load them and set the player to loop.
Pretty simple and no need for wiring all over the place, mixing tracks, etc. Just discrete sounds coming from different places. Each will have a volume control, so will be easy to balance volume between them once they’re all running.
Ceder, did you bring up this topic because you are unhappy with your sound engines sound’s? If that is the reason, have you though about adding speakers to say a box car and use a quick disconnect to the engine sound decoder?
Cuda Ken
JMRI has a subsystem called Virtual Sound Decoder, which can play sounds associated with one or more DCC controlled locomotives. I’m not sure whether JMRI has to be controlling the locomotive (perhaps under the control of a smartphone or tablet?), or if it can use a DCC packet analyzer to pick off the commands to the loco from any DCC system.
I don’t know if it supports more than two channels, but for a small layout, two channels might be enough.
It could be also be used with a good subwoofer to augment the deep bass sounds while the sound decoders in the locos provide the higher frequencies with which we can detect direction.
Then we can rattle the windows just like a 1:1 railroad!
And the price is right (well, except for the subwoofer)…
Andy
I’m not really sure what you are after.
Do you want cheaper sound, or more realistic sound for engines?
Or do you want more ambient sounds related to the environment? IE: Steel mills or saw mills, or city streets?
Or do you want sounds that react to the movement of the train? (IE: When a train hits a certain spot, have the sound system play a certain sound)
There are tons of solutions available for all of these. HOWEVER none are cheap. And too much noise can make you want to plug your ears.
If you are a programmer, you can pick up a $35 Raspberry Pi and direct to the sound to any of 7 speakers via HDMI output, and play any sound you want on triggered inputs. But like I said, this is limited to people who know how to program.
Localized sound in very low volumes I find works best. I don’t ever turn my engines up past 128 (Half way) in terms of volume.
Has anybody tried Surround Traxx, if so how do you like it?
Richard
I brought up this new thread because I am getting ready to dive into DCC. My beautiful and talented daughter recently had a college class on electronic music last fall where several of their assignments involved working with small digital sound files using Audacity software to create layered audio files, where multiple sources of sound were diced and sliced to make new files. The idea of using very tiny speakers in hollow styrene or metal enclosures, both poorly suited to better quality sound amplification, does not appeal to me. My experiences at theme parks and museums where sound environments were carefully engineered to “mesh” with the observable scenes, makes me pause and give thought to the alternative less expensive means by which to create railroad sounds for my layout, hence my random thoughts on this topic. I know that I will get laughed at for being a cheap guy, but there has to be a way for those of us who just want a better enhancement of the layout without rewiring diesels we already worked on once or twice, and spending more money to boot! In my case, I want to do things right from the start, so I don’t spend money for a result that might not be as appealing to me as to others. I have heard the sound on board a number of locomotives at a local club layout and it seems “tinny” to my ear, although interesting. I then compare that with what I recall from professional exhibits and see a gap that a more user-friendly size of speaker system might fill. Cedarwoodron
DCC sound decoders have several advantages. The sound is localized to the speaker. If the speaker is in the locomotive, the sound appears to be coming from the locomotive, and not some generalized location on the layout. When motor control and sound are integrated in the decoder, the load, sequencing, and programming of the motor can be used as triggers for various sounds to enhance realism.
OTOH, as you have pointed out, replication of low (often even medium) frequency sounds from tiny speakers is problemmatic. This is even more true in HOn3 and N. And the speaker installation takes away from space that could be used for weight for increased tractive effort.
However, moving sound processing to under the layout means loss of the tie to the motor parameters in the decoder. At best, the under table decoder can only read the command station commands to the locomotive, not the motor output or feedback. In the case of steam (HOn3), I also lose cam synchronization of steam exhaust.
The expensive SurroundTrax uses decoder transponding (Digitrax decoders only) to localize the sound to the correct speaker sets, but does not solve the problem of cam or motor feedback driven sound effects.
While a rich sound can be derived from under-the-layout speaker sets, it may not mirror what the locomotive is doing at the moment, and it may not appear to be coming from the correct place. Nevertheless, I will probably try to make under layout speakers work before I try cramming a speaker and sound decoder into my HOn3 Keystone Shay or FED 2-6-0. Some folks in N have reportedly made this scheme work fairly well for a yard or shelf layout.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
Play the engines quietly and they won’t sound so “tin” like.
For ambient background sounds:
http://www.pricom.com/Trains/Downloads-DreamSounds.shtml
http://www.fantasonics.com/samples/audition.html
Options to get the sound to your layout
Option A:
You can load these into mp3 players and then by decent quality computer speakers to drive them. You’ll be looking about $80/minimum per sound set by the time you get the mp3 player and speakers.
Option B:
Use a windows based system and use a 7.1 sound card. Find mixing software that supports 6.1 discrete channels (Dolby EX and DTS ES) Use a 7.1 sound system for computers (about $100 for speakers + cost of software)
You can easily create a 4.1 using stereo sources if you know how to basic phase shift signals by 90 degrees. (The theory of operation behind Dolby Prologic Surround)
Option C:
Hire a programmer to write you custom software that works on a computer. Pay $100/hour x a couple dozen hours minimum.
Option D:
Grab a $35 Raspberry Pi install Linux, find some audio mixing software on Linux and computer sound speaker system and do it yourself. This will be the cheapest, most complex, but most limited option
Option E:
Buy the pricom designs system. (Also not cheap, but flexible) Add computer speaker system to it.
http://www.pricom.com/index.shtml
Option F:
Buy a preloaded sound hardware module from innovative train tech solutions
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?manu=349&category=PSS&split=30
As a long time designer of Hi Fi speakers, I can tell you there is no simple answer here.
The issue of sound quality is directly linked to dynamic range and frequency response, two things all the current small scale onboard systems lack.
NOT even a 3x3 cube speaker can product any measurable quality bass regardless of digital sound processing. It takes about a .5 cubic foot enclosure to get down to 100 Hz and about twice that to get down below 50 Hz. To someone who has heard real speakers, all this digital mini crap is just that.
The questions about layout based sound are complex and intriguing. One big requirement for a good result would be to design the room, and the bench work with a number of considerations for the sound system.
There is lots of technology out there that could be applied to this, but the question is cost, and deciding what results to pursue and what goals to reach.
Since many are happy with the current offerings, there is little incentive for research.
As for the cost of Surroundtraxx, it is cheap compared to a DCC layout with 100 sound locos, each one having an increased decoder cost of about $50 over a non sound decoder.
As to the notion that the current offerings sound fine with the volume low enough, true, but not true.
At low volumes our brains don’t expect to hear bass notes, so our sensibilities are less offended by the lack of frequency response. And lower volumes do put the sound a little more in scale with our small models. With low volumes, sound becomes an effect only realized by those very close to the loco, and while that is way more “realistic” it also assumes no “viewers”, just operators enjoying “their” train.
Here is a new question, how do you get effective sound on a multi deck layout? Another reason I don’t want sound. My long mainline run is more important than sound.
But for me, all the current offerings are too much money, and/or too much work, for to
We have had miniature high quality sound systems for a long time,
Any assumption that with have them now depends on sujective measurements of “miniature” and “high quality”.
Based on my experiance as a speaker designer mini is about 1 cubic foot, and high quality requires bass response below 50 Hz.
But remember, I’m the guy who won’t own an Ipod or ear buds.
Now the 11 speaker sound system in my new Ford Flex - that rocks.
I have yet to hear anytihng in the “computer monitor” size of speaker that I want to listen to anything more than voices on - those things distroy music or sound effects.
Sheldon
While most of my locomotives, both steam and diesel, have on-board sound decoders and speakers, several of the smaller engines do not.
To make their operation more realistic, I mounted a steam and diesel Soundtraxx DSD101-LC decoder under my layout. Each is wired to a 4-inch speaker taken from an old keyboard.
For operation I use the undertable decoder’s address as primary and MU the selected locomotive to it. Since they are ‘coupled’ responses are synchronized and since my layout is relatively small (4 x 10) this system works well for me.
I prefer to have each loco self contained and the above ‘solution’ is admittedly a compromise but it works well for me on the BRVRR.
Allen,
Your set up sounds most interesting. Have you considered filming a video and uploading it to YouTube? Always good seeing options for modelers to try out.
Allen’s approach may somewhat work, but there are “disadvantages” The first and foremost is you would have to give up any “sound of power, or BEMF feedback” Why? Because placing the decoder under the layout, there’s no load on a motor to measure the resistence (and increase the chuff or decrease it)
As to a load on the undertable decoder. Both decoders have a 12v structure light bulb wired in place of a motor. This is required to program the Soundtraxx decoders. Since they are basic, I don’t believe they have BEMF, but the sound does increase as speed increases.
Even a more sophisticated sound decoder can have a ‘dummy’ load of some type to provide the desired response.
I will consider making a video of one of the undertable decoders in use. It may take me a few days, but I’ll work on it.
After giving it some thought, I recruited my oldest grandson to act as my videographer and made a short video demonstrating my undertable sound decoder installation.
When you watch the video, please excuse the poor editing and less than charming narration. Also, I turned up the volume on the sound decoder to ensure that the video camera would pick it up. It is normally not quite so loud.
Here is the link to the YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdr_WwHCg4I&feature=youtube_gdata
I hope the video explains how this installation works.