Signal, Noise, thoughts and comments
Dear Soundcar Curious,
In order of appearance:
- Unfortunately no, this is not "cutting-edge", sound in scale model railcars (as opposed to locos) has been practised since waaay before DCC was even thought of. Reference the PFM sound systems, the Starrtec Transponder, and D. Derek Verner's "car load of sound" article in June 1997 MR for just a few touchpoints. Cars with "reefer unit' oscillator circuits, and stockcars from LifeLike and others are also worth mentioning.
- Re "great point for User-Loadable sounds" : Digitrax (Soundbug light+sound decoders with Fred Miller's "SPJ helper" utility), Zimo, and CT-Electronik have had all the "Light+Sound, No Motor" hardware required to achieve this with "user loading" for almost a decade now. "Lack of user-loadable hardware" is not what stopped "DCC-controlled sound in railcars" occuring...
- Lots of short-close-coupled cars such as ore jennies will affect the cadence/rhythm of rail-joint "clickety-clack", certainly. However, assuming a common wheel diameter, whether the car is a 23' long ore hopper or a 90' long pig-flat will not change the cadence of a "flatspot" (one "thump" per wheel revolution). In terms of simulating railjoint "clickety-clack", esp at obvious physical locations such as diamond crossings, I would suggest a track detector (see Terry Terrence's article in last-month's MRH) and a Pricom DreamPlayer.
- "Brake-line pressure propagation" effects are do-able, but require rather-specific "intelligence" built into the respective players, or some realtime audio signal processing. Both are likely far in-excess of the average modeller's headspace.
- Whether to put the speakers on or offboard the railcar is best determined by what it is you wish to achieve.
* Clanking accross a diamond (IE a identifiable physical location) = offboard (detector + Dreamplayer)
NOTE! Getting the "cah-lunk --- cah-lunk" thru "kadang kadang" range of speed-dependent sounds from a single offboard unit may pose a challenge. Getting a detector which is axle-accurate is another. Both are not insurmountable, but likely require more effort than most modellers are willing to apply. End result is somewhere between "...a man's gotta know his limitations..." (respect to Clint Eastwood) and "pick the compromises you're willing to live with" (a wise Model Railroader, once upon a time).
* long low-speed tight curve flangesqueal around defined/specific curve (again a visible identifiable location on the layout) = offboard
(NB with strategic triggering and suitable sound-design, such effect could include built-in doppler, phase-shift, and "acoustic ambience" effects. Consider as example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a71A4nsnqUE
NOTE! The LayoutSound Yahoogroup "railcar sound project" used the CAM input on the Digitraxx "soundbug", connected to a YAW switch on the railcar truck, to trigger the "tight curve flange squeal" only when the car was literally "rounding a too-tight corner. Unclear if the "SoundCar" has such "truck YAW input trigger" capability. NB that Loksound have also deployed such a "active truck swing detection> flange squeal" system in their recent UK Class 66 and Class 77 factory-loco-sound offerings...)
* generic intermittent "shing shing...shiiing shishinng" as the car rolls along
(IE not inherrently tied to a specific identifiable track component or location) = onboard
* reefer unit = could be either, onboard appeals
* RCL/RCP/CCRCL horn = onboard, no question
* brake squeal = onboard, with possible offboard "ambience" re-inforcement
(the brakesqueal of a car as it is brought to a stop within a warehouse has characteristic reverberance and "acoustic ambience" which is location-specific/ddependent).
- As above, SoundTraxx is not the first to do this, but they are the first to present it in a user-installable sound-preloaded form. Despite occasional lone cries to the contrary, the US Model RR market has proven with $$$ for many years now that _preloaded_pre-fab_sound_ options are much preferred and sold-in-quantity over truly "load your own" hardware solutions (IE here the user is obliged to do their own sound-design/foley/scratchbuilding and optimising). Had there genuinely been any real substantial quantity of motivation to "roll one's own", we would have seen a publicly-documented "SoundCar" already, likely using Digitraxx/Lok/Zimo/CT-Electronik hardware.
(Indeed, the LayoutSound Yahoogroup set out to achieve this using the Digitraxx Soundbug/SFX0416 decoders over 2 years ago. Despite being the leading "model RR sound thinktank" going round, the project was stillborn for 2 main reasons.
1 - Plenty of talking, but no actual motivation to do the required sound-design/user-loading from "the rank-n-file",
and
2 - literally No Consensus as to what sounds/era/railcar-construction/prototype the exemplar project car would/should represent.
"you can't please everyone all the time" a wiseman once said.
Equally, no matter how "brilliant" or "obvious" an idea is,
if the person putting-in-the-effort to build the "Proof of concept" unit decides to make it _Insert_railroad/era/construction/roadname_HERE_,
then they run the real risk of the idea being completely ignored/panned by anyone who deems the exemplar "not directly relevant to their modelling path". The ability to take a concept from one "exemplar project"/article, and cross-platform apply it to another seems to be a waning skill in today's model RR community, and I occasionally get concerned about that...)
- Re Are the sounds "speed sync'd"?
This is indeed one of the factors/features that IMHO the existing demo YT clip does not adequately demonstrate, (although it is just one of many factors which materially affect the aural characteristics of a "flatspot")
- O/T but I will be very interested to see the Iowa Scaled Enegineering unit "release version" in action, although I have to note it sounds remarkably like what the already-available Pricom DreamPlayer MK2 can do. (4x "tracks", each individually triggerable, where each time a "track" is triggered, it can automatically randomly select from up-to 4 "sub track" sound files, with "trigger once/play-while-trigger/loop-play" functionality user-configurable). http://www.pricom.com/Trains/DreamPlayerMK2.shtml
- Sound follows layout viewers via stationary speakers: Certainly do-able with current technology, although consider what happens when there are more than one viewer in the layout room? (The IR/proximity sensors can't tell who to "prioritise" and "follow", let alone what direction the listener is oriented within the room). Strongly suggest using the MRH search for "headphone bluetooth audio", as such systems, Pros and Cons have been well discussed here previously. Furthur discussion has been had, including systems suggestions and possible hardware configs, on the LayoutSound YahooGroup.
(Note! Whatever budget you think you have for a truly independent-signal-per-listener "sound follows viewer" rig in a fixed layout-room situation, double it and add at-least 1x zero, then all at least US$200 per additional "viewer" you wish the system to successfully simultaneously handle...
If however you literally only want a "one common loco to 1-3 listeners simultaneously" system, MRH search "Lance Mindheim Headphone Sennheiser", or check Lance's blog from 2012... )
- Novelties wear thin, properly optimised solutions keep giving over and over again. What we've seen so far is a "plug it in and turn it on" demonstration. Assuming the SoundCar decoder has a full TSU-spec EQ procesing section, and whoever is installing it pays as-much-if-not-more attention to speaker-choice + enclosure + mounting + scale-sound playback levels than current onboard-loco-sound installers do, then IMHO there is some real promise here...
- One outstanding question: Does the magnetic wand actually assign/de-assign the car from a consist,
(IE leaving non-motion sounds such as the Reefer unit, horns, etc still operating),
or is it a simply "master Mute/Un-Mute" switch?
- RE ST own's demo cars : Any details RE speaker and enclosure choice, install, EQ settings and demonstrated Master Volume dB SPL-A levels?
- Again, others (notably outside the US) have previously thought about, and even actually deployed railcar sound systems. ST's offering is notable in that it has brought this capabilty to the "happy to complain about it, but not willing to actually do the work to user-load their own" modellers.
- Wooden framed cars do certainly creak and groan in (sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so subtle) different ways to modern era steel-framed cushion-draftgeared cars. This is one of the reasons the LayoutSound "railcar sound" project of a few years ago went stillborn (see above).
- Waiting for the 2nd Gen : Given that TCS has overtaken ST in the audio performance stakes, and that the Soundcar is not being promoted as having any improved audio specs over a stock TSU, I'm not sure "waiting for the 2nd gen" is likely to pay-off in either the short or medium terms.
It's worth noting that the average human ear is capable of hearing far in excess of 8kHz, and the speakers that can fit in typical HO locos are potentially capable of reaching down to 100Hz. (MRH Search "izotope RX" for recent related threads).
However, both physical benchmarks have been notably ignored, and in some cases actively rejected, by many model RR sound product manufacturers. The result was and is aurally sub-spec offerings (compared to even cheapo kiddie "domestic audio" devices) which "never needed to be any better, because the average modeller can't tell the difference anyway".
- Cumulative noise levels annoying in the long term : quite possibly, esp if they are set too loud to begin with. However, this is entirely within the End-Installer/User's control.
Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr