ESU Diesel Sound Files: Turning a Non-HEP File into a HEP File?

[carlso]

T-fan and Tim, great thread, I for one really enjoyed the "learning" that I got out of it. The ESU decoders are great, I do not know if these types of alterations can be made with other brands of decoders. Thanks again !

T-fan,

Your last post Item #3 is relatively easy. I think I have done what you are looking at doing, so here is my result.

1st - I wanted a tiger roar as a second horn in my rail beast:



So, I downloaded some wav files from "Pond 5" and came up with this :

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The only sound decoder that I could mess with is in this F3b but the sound DID work. I did away with the "coupler clank" and put this roar, for use at street crossings, on function #3.

I, with help from ESU io group, peteski, and Dwight in Toronto, I was able to alter the lights in my KATO GS4.

Again, thanks for all the great info, be well, Happy New Year !

Carl

[Dwight in Toronto]

I did something similar to Carl.

When I finished creating a sound car tethered to my tiny Dapol 0-6-0, I put a bunch of sheep + farmer into a low-sided British wagon, to replicate a trip to market as might have been seen in, say, Cornwall or the Cotswolds back in late 1800’s in the UK.  I then managed to find a short .wav file of a flock of sheep bleating, and figured out how to get that to play on F6. 

The sound effect can only be played so often before it gets ‘old’, but I mainly did it as a learning exercise (and for grandkids amusement!).

[kiwi_bnsf]

1. In sound files that have an automatic high/low idle where the high idle also gets triggered by the compressor, this compressor trigger can get defeated if you import a different compressor. How can this be overcome so the new compressor also triggers the higher idle?

Most of the ESU prime movers that implement idle changes when the Compressor is started do this via share2.1.

share1 and share2 are the main way that different sound slots can interact with each other. share1 and share2 each have just a single numeric value, but the LokProgrammer allows eight true/false confiditions to be  "stacked" within the single number by using powers of 2:
   share2.0 = true = 2 exponent 0 = 1
   share2.1 = true = 2 exponent 1 = 2
   share2.0 and share 2.1 true = 2+1 = 3

share1 is used as an integer value to by the Prime Mover Sound slot to "communicate" the current notch setting to other sound  slots. This is used by the Dynamic Brake sound to be aware of when the Dynamic or HEP mode has has been reached by the prime mover.

share2.0 through share2.7 are used as true/false conditions that vary by sound file. In S0747 these are used as follows (as per the comment in the prime mover slot):
   Share 2.0 Emergency Brake or Brake Penalty
   Share 2.1 Air Compressor High Idle Trigger
   Share 2.2
   Share 2.3
   Share 2.4
   Share 2.5
   Share 2.6
   Share 2.7 Auto Bell

You can use the Simulator in the Prime Mover sound slot, set the Function active and wait until the loco settles into low idle, and then set Share2 to 2 and observe it kick up into high idle.

If you've imported a different Compressor, all you need to do is make sure that it has Share2.1 = true set as an action on init, and Share2.1 = false set on exit. You just add the action to the transition arrow, and type 2.1 as the Register and the LokProgrammer will change the configurable values to true/false.

Here is my customised GE Whoop Compressor (this also includes a short random delay on init to keep consists more random, and a share1=2 exit if the prime mover is shutdown):




I make heavy use of share2.x values for custom features like sounds that need to play asynchronously to logical sound slots, or for delayed features like cooling fans needing to run after a loco has been above notch 6 for an extended time and then comes to a stop.

Hope that helps

[kiwi_bnsf]

2. Can a prime mover be set up so the sound only throttles up to a certain speed step setting? The V5 P42 file prime mover sound only goes up to speed step 2 or 3 through the when not in HEP, which I'm told is prototypical(?). I suppose his could be useful for other sound files as well.

This is possible. Firstly I would say that the Prime mover on locomotive will always notch up if the engineer advances the throttle, and a P42 definitely has all 8 notches. HEP just leads to a minimum rpm.

However, whether this sounds right for a given sound file is a matter of personal taste, and I have customised my ScaleTrains Dash 9 prime movers not to advance beyond D6 (as the sound samples for D7-D8 are a hot mess).

One quick way for you to experiment with this without having to modify the prime mover sound flows would be to adjust SoundCV1-8 to higher speed step values for the higher notches. For example you could set Notch 5,6,7 to really high speeds via SoundCV5,6,7. (You do this under Decoder > Sound Slot Settings). This only requires a Decoder write (no need to re-write the whole sound file).

Hope this helps.

[kiwi_bnsf]

3. How to make and import custom sounds, such as a horn.

In order to make your own sounds, you will need to record or obtain a sample in WAV format, add it to your project, and associate it with a "State" within a new or existing sound slot. The process of braking up a sample into sub samples that can be looped or existed is a whole topic by itself. You can see how simple/complex this can be by examining a variety of the stock ESU horn sound flows.

The LokProgrammer manual pages 15-16 cover how to import a WAV file to a sound project:

         https://www.esu.eu/en/downloads/instruction-manuals/lokprogrammer/


Please note that it is not possible to extract and edit sound samples contained within a pre-existing sound project. You are restricted to copying/pasting samples within or between sound slots (which can then be exported in an encrypted form to your Templates folder) — but this can still get you a long way!

[tehachapifan]

Awesome Information, thanks!! This ended up being a great thread!

Regarding the S0747 file, I noticed it has a really elaborate, compressor-triggered low/high idle where the idle immediately goes back to low idle when the compressor stops. This seems to be the most realistic from what I've heard in real life as a casual observer of at least newer GE units (vs. staying in high idle for an extended period after the compressor stops). It even (sometimes) kicks up to an even higher idle if it's already in the high idle. Don't know if that's completely prototypical (especially for an 8-32BWH), but it's pretty cool! I'm currently trying to import whoop compressor WAV's into the numerous containers this file as the original file has containers for all the different compressor speeds based on notch selection. The whoop compressor only has one loop at a set speed though (I think that's correct for a whoop compressor).

This stuff is fun but it's a rabbit hole!

Update: I did successfully get the whoop compressor sounds to operate with the stock S0747 compressor schematic, but the compressor is now going off way to frequently. Not sure how to adjust that.

[kiwi_bnsf]

Regarding the S0747 file, I noticed it has a really elaborate, compressor-triggered low/high idle where the idle immediately goes back to low idle when the compressor stops. This seems to be the most realistic from what I've heard in real life as a casual observer of at least newer GE units (vs. staying in high idle for an extended period after the compressor stops). It even (sometimes) kicks up to an even higher idle if it's already in the high idle. Don't know if that's completely prototypical (especially for an 8-32BWH), but it's pretty cool! I'm currently trying to import whoop compressor WAV's into the numerous containers this file as the original file has containers for all the different compressor speeds based on notch selection. The whoop compressor only has one loop at a set speed though (I think that's correct for a whoop compressor).

Update: I did successfully get the whoop compressor sounds to operate with the stock S0747 compressor schematic, but the compressor is now going off way to frequently. Not sure how to adjust that.

The S0747 file does indeed have an elaborate shaft-driven compressor that uses share1 values to change speed depending on the prime mover notch.

If you are going for a Whoop Compressor, then I would simply delete the shaft driven compressor sound slot (Sound project overview > Right-Click on the Sound Slot > Delete). You can import one of the GE Wabco Whoop Compressors from the Templates folder (Loksound Template Pack 1.9 > Compressors > USA > Wabco Electric Whoop) using the arrow buttons. You can then edit this to add the necessary share2.1 actions to the init and exit (and you also need to remove the share1 actions and conditions – as these won't work with S0747).

If your Compressor is running too frequently, then you'll need to change the random trigger for it. You do this via Decoder > Function Settings > Random functions.

By default, S0747 has the Compressor in Sound Slot 7, and this is function mapped to F20. There is a random trigger for this, and by default runs every 40-60 seconds (which is too frequently) for a duration of 10-20s (which is about right). You can change the minimum to 220s and max to 240s, and then write the settings to the decoder.



In terms of what is prototypical, I've found this to vary quite a bit even with a locomotive model, and conditions. Some Dash8s and Dash 9s with Whoop Compressors just briefly throttle up, whereas others go into high idle for an extended period. This can also be affected by how hot the locomotive's cooling system is running as more electrical power can be demanded by cooling fans and pumps.

EMDs equipped with shaft-driven compressors have quite different behaviour — they typically exit low idle and then there is a subtle drop in prime mover rpm as the compressor adds a bit of load. On some of the ESU files you can simulate this very realistically by kicking up to D1 for the rpm drop.

The flexibility of the LokProgrammer is pretty damn cool 

[tehachapifan]

I have decreased the frequency of how often the compressor files as you described, but it almost seems like this sound file's compressor properties contain compressor firing triggers and runtime parameters outside of what you can program in Random Function settings. I say this because not all the compressors trigger a high idle and, when one does, the compressor will run way longer than I've programmed it to. And, when I first tested it out before I reduced the frequency, the compressor was going off a couple seconds apart in some cases. I feel like there's two separate programs running the compressor. Going to set active min and max to zero and or active min and max to 255 and see what happens...