APSEL-Project: Invitation to join in

[Trevithick]

APSEL means:
All Purpose Soundsytem for Electric Locomotives

The background:
The MS/Kuju sound for the electric and steam engines does not sound like the original at all. I dont' think, we can do anything for our steamer friends yet, they themselves tried hard to find a solution, but they failed because of the game engine.

For the electric engines I found a solution, that is in beta test phase and uses the sound samples of MS/Kuju. The technique I use for the .sms seems to be new in the community, even payware addons dont' use it. What I do not understand: The principle is so simple, that everybody interested in .sms programming will pat his forehead after we publish it and ask why he did not come after it himself. It is so simple, that I am not shure, wether we may claim a Copyright for the .sms-files. It sounds good yet! Even much better then MS/Kuju.

But the things could be much perfect.

We need:

A good Nathan/Airchime K-5L (like the one of Columbus Locomotive Works PA, can anyone find the guys, so we can obtain a license?),
A whistle for some european trains would be nice,
Fan sounds from the standing loco (every type is apprciated).
Isolated sound of an electric motor with gearbox (or a moving loco without fans, huh??? Nobody will do this!)

I would appreciate doing a "joint venture" with friends here, that can contribute good sample (.wav)-files from electric engines and can add the necessary markers to them.

Conditions: All partners are mentioned in the readme and .sms-files. The system will be freeware. The copyrightholders for the single files will be the contributors. The system will be published on train-sim.com and is free only for publishing on non profit sites.

Thank you in advance

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg

*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[shoskins]

I've noticed that most of the add-on air horns for locomotives are the Nathan or Airchime varieties....I've seen M-3's, M-5's, K-5's, P-3's and P-5's.

Most of the freight locomotives of years gone by, especially PennCentral, Conrail, Union Pacific -- they used Leslie types such as the S-3L and S-5T's. Yet none of these seemt o be showing up.

[Trevithick]

Very interesting argument, indeed. I do not live in the US, so I have a big problem to find out, what components are used.

The goal of APSEL is, to offer a replacement for the ACELA and HHP sound system, also usable for the GE E60C and after few modifications for international electric locomotives. It shall be a better "common sound" system.

So we will have to use various horns and pipes, if we want to be near to the prototypes. The first thought about horns was, that we first need the horns, that Amtrac uses for the Acela. Somebody wrote, that they use K-5L. The only thing I am not shure about is, wether they use the K-5L for all their locomotives, or only for the Genesis (the use on the Genesis seems clear, because of the K-5L "smoker" story, which I will not spread in this article.

More titbits from the APSEL project:
The sound system will have a motor sound, pitch-controlled by the velocity of the engine. It will have a basic fan sound, independent of the velocity or the current of the engine. It is allready tested successfull on the following engines:
RhB Ge 6/6 II, RhB Ge 6/6 I and Be 68 as representatives of slow mountain howlers (the sound of this engines had droupouts and crackles with the Acela sound management system); Clem Tilliers TGV worldspeedrecord as representative for highspeedtrains (I thought every moment, the rotors will fly out of the motors); with a slightly modified version of the sound management system with the E60C of Ray Reyes and Chuck Schneider. When I crosscheck it with the real sound of a modern german 101, it sounds reasonable and much better, then the Kuju one.

I could publish it in the next days, but the climax would be a prototypical Acela horn with markers. I would like to take the one of CLW, but I cannot do it for copyright reasons (I can not find the copyright holder, because he closed his site).

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg

*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[Macster]

I was wondering, well there be any plans to modifiy the SD/GE units to simulate the traction motors?
I downloaded and tested the Acela/HHP, it sounds soooooooooo sweet accelerating!!

Thanks alot, keep up this awesome work.


Brian E. Bundridge
Seattle, WA USA

[Trevithick]

Hello Macster,

modifying the U-boats sound seems a little bit more tricky. We here in Germany have more diesel-hydraulic locos (only the old russian "Traigatrommel" or in english Taigadrum of the former DDR in running, but seldom here in the south), so I can onla assume the behaviour of the diesel engine when I accelerate or decelerate. My assumption is, that the diesel runs at idle rpm when standing accelerates to "optimal" rpm when under burden. Optimal means rpm with highest torque. More burden in this assumption would only mean more noise and a additional peaks in the sound spectrum based on resonances. Do anyone have experience?

Thank yo for your comment

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg
*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[Trevithick]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-28-02 AT 03:11PM (EST)[p]The project is becoming a subject of joined affords. Joseph Realmuto is about to add new sound-fx, so I think, the next upgrade will be uploaded by him. The group of MSTS freeware developers is open. As it looks, our "artwork" will be licensed for publishing (a part or the whole archive) to every developer, who will publish his software on such a free base (non profit exept fun and honor, free license of software for other open and non profit developers). Join in if you are developing for fun and feel resistent against the loners and the $$$-vultures. I think, we will do a fine job and united we will deliver quality. You will find our "products" free in the future and not packed in a "roundhouse" for 25 or more bucks.

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg
*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[chucksc]

Hi Guys!
You might want to write us off line about the Horns!
Our own Matt Donnelly is a "Recognized" Horn Expert (You should see the rack on his pickup truck)....
There is a K5la made from a recording of a Real One that Matt made for our F40.... And a P5a for our E60 and a Leslie for the GG1 and NH Amtrak...
All these are installed in Common.Snd/Horns by various NALW projects....

I have been trying to get the New Haven EP5 Jet sounds just right and intend to try you technique for them....

Great Idea on the Sound Engine......

I got it right up there with 3D trainstuff's sound engine for their SD70 which is adoptable to a whole host of other engines and in fact with different sound samples was the basis for our F40 sound engine....

------Chuck Schneider---------
http://forums.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3be393470fae6ec7.jpg
-----"Power for You"-------

[chucksc]

Actually in North American Diesel Electric Practice (almost all North American Locos) the throttle controls the current flow to the traction motors and the Prime Mover (diesel engine) then follows along with what ever rpm is necessary to produce the required current.... So the difference between <Run 0><IDLE> and <RUN 1> <Slow> might not require any change of rpm on the part of the prime mover.. The effect of this is that the prime mover sound changes in steps (usually 6 to 8) with throttle postion (8 to 15 depending on manufacturer) and that is all pretty linear... Believe it or not the DASH9 sounds in MSTS are about 80% accurate...
------Chuck Schneider---------
http://forums.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3be393470fae6ec7.jpg
-----"Power for You"-------

[Trevithick]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-28-02 AT 06:56PM (EST)[p]Analyze all the .sms files and you will find this fact:
All soundfiles independant of the traction system are derived from the diesel electric locomotives. The sound matches to the Uboats, and then they had no time at Kuju and Mickey Soft and began to work very sloppy. The skins and the sound seems to be the last thing, they have done (look at the skin of the MS Genesis). The sound for the GE Dash 9 was ready and then they thaught, they have to program all the sound with this sample switching algorithm. I needed for the much more simple "APSEL" algorithm 2 or 3 days. I was in need to demonstrate, that the hissing and crackling of an electric engine model was not caused by an .eng-file, I had dared to change on various parameters. In what distress was the sound programmer, that he messed this files together for the electric and steam engines.

In my eyes, the struggle for good steam engine sound is nearly lost. Many very good developers of our community here have tried their luck. But it seems, that you can only control the cadence of the exaust puffing of the steamengine by pitch control and not by triggering single shots, they seem to have forgotten the trigger. And pitch control is no option at steam engines, 'cause the frequency spectrum only changes with the pressure but not with the cadence. So the sound of the steam engine will remain makeshift and forcefitted, if we do not find a hidden trigger, and there is not many hope. The developer of the sound system does not seem to be a pro. All the .sms-files do only switch between the samples and blend one sample to the other. Why? It is very hard to record specific noise inside and outside of an fast rolling engine, you have the all the noise of the vicinity and the airstream and it is hard work to do in the studio or on your computer to filter the sound in a way, that you only have the component, you need. Too much for Kuju-Microsoft. As "ASPEL" shows, for electric engines additive sound mixing does the better effect, than only sample switching, but you have to stress a little bit your little grey cells to analyze the components of a specific noise (this is the reason, I did not claim any copyright for the algorithm, it is simply to easy). Then you decide to record the sample or do a little bit soundsynthesis (this is an art for itself I admit, a I know a little bit, what I am speaking of. One of my other hobbies is sound synthesis with an NI reaktor).

It would have been nice for me to simulate the sound of wheel slipping for older electric engines like the SJ litt Da or litt D wood of our swedish friends, but there seem to be no variable for the speed of the wheel. Variable1 is directly dependent to the position of the throttle lever or wheel, I assume. I did run short tests for pitch controlling with Variable1, it did not help me to advance.

Another thing, that is hard to beleave is, that Amtrac runs their high speed trains on unwelded rails. This clickadiclack seems not to be the sample of a train on the NEC. Noise on switches is okay. Please correct me if I am wrong.

We discussed many things, we would like in version two of MSTS. I have only one request, and it would be hard enough to pay again for it: A simulator engine with the necesary parameters, variables, triggers to do a good simulation including good sound.

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg
*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[chucksc]

Trev,

Actually the entire NEC is welded rail... 160lb to the yard min. and 200lb in most places all over concrete ties(Sleepers to you guys from the other side of the pond)

I believe you about the sounds as I have been trying to clean up the EP5 electric sounds (it looks like a bigger NS1200 if you see one) and getting very frustrated with it.....

I hope your technique will help me out with this one....

Keep up the good work

------Chuck Schneider---------
http://forums.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3be393470fae6ec7.jpg
-----"Power for You"-------

[Trevithick]

Joseph Realmuto reports, that he tested the simulation of the sound of the electric traction motors, but the traction motor sound is masked by the loud noise of the primary diesel engine, so it seems to be at no use.

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg
*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[chucksc]

I wonder if there is some way to "extract" the traction motor sounds that are present at high throttle settings on the GP38???? They are definately there and you can hear them along with the prime mover!

------Chuck Schneider---------
http://forums.flightsim.com/dcforum/User_files/3be393470fae6ec7.jpg
-----"Power for You"-------

[Trevithick]

Sorry, it is nearly impossible to extract them. The sound contains noise and noise is a random wave form. You can try to filter it with a band pass filter, but you will not get the clean sound of the traction motors. You even have a better chance to "construct" it by sound synthesis. But the tools for this task are expensive and you have to be very fit with acoustics. I myself only had success with airstream noise (areodynamic noise) in all forms, but a prototypical motor noise is much more complex. On the other side it is more simple to use the noise of an electric locomotive and to increase or decrease the pitch with the speed parameter. Actually, the diesel electric engine is an electric engine, that carries its own power plant. The component "electric engine" is not so noisy, noisy is the "diesel
power plant". Even the cooling fans for the break resistors may make more noise then the traction motor does. The gearboxes should make no significant noise or the gearswheels are worn out.
A very complex system, I am tampering with at the moment is the wheel and rail noise. This is a thing that is under scientific research since a few years here in Europe with the goal of noise reduction. Until taday I found no open sources for the relation between speed and noise level or speed and frequency spectrum. But this is another task.

Trevithick

http://www.steamboat-electric.de/SE.jpg
*** I am nothing without a little help of my friends...

[msavianney]

LAST EDITED ON May-11-02 AT 01:14AM (EDT)[p]Hi Trevithick,

I'd be interested in helping any way I can. I have been sent a number of traction sounds, including bells, a streetcar compressor sound and some long sounds of interurban cars winding up. I have no knowledge myself about sound files but I'd be willing to learn. Oh, by the way, I appreciate your previous help with .eng files and will be mentioning you in the readme. My interurban cars are almost ready for release, but the big letdown is that I have to alias the HHP, a set of sounds most unlike a 1920s interurban car.

Cheers,
Matt A