Various sound problems

[mipman25]

I just made a bunch of rolling stock for a new fictional road called TCRX, which sees service between Fort Fairfax and Thomas Canyon on the Full Bucket Line. However, I did run into two sound problems along the way.

1. I installed Steven West/Derek Miller's Shay D sound upgrade onto a Shay B. For some reason, I hear twelve chuffs per revolution of a piston instead of six. Will changing the frequency fix this?

2. I gave a S-3 a Nathan M3 from Anthony Wood's MLW Horns pack. The horn plays at half its usual speed and sounds like an out-of-tune Wabco E2-B1. I looked at the horn stream and there is no frequency curve. Is there a way for me to add a frequency curve to this stream to have it play at 22050 khz? If so, how?

[Noisemaker]

Are you using the Shay WAV's in another SMS? I know Derek was very meticulous about getting the revolutions right, so it could be you're missing the proper frequency curve from the Shay D SMS's?
As for the Nathan Horn, it's frequency can be fixed in the SMS as well. Just doing some work for Derek again, so I have this right handy. Your horn stream in the SMS should look like this...

Stream (
Priority ( 6 )
Triggers ( 2
Discrete_Trigger ( 10 StartLoopRelease ( 1 File ( "NathanM3.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( SequentialSelection ) ) )
Discrete_Trigger ( 11 ReleaseLoopReleaseWithJump () )
)
FrequencyCurve(
SpeedControlled
CurvePoints ( 3
-99 22050
0 22050
99 22050
)
Granularity ( 0 )
)
)

Hope that helps some.

[mipman25]

Are you using the Shay WAV's in another SMS? I know Derek was very meticulous about getting the revolutions right, so it could be you're missing the proper frequency curve from the Shay D SMS's?
As for the Nathan Horn, it's frequency can be fixed in the SMS as well. Just doing some work for Derek again, so I have this right handy. Your horn stream in the SMS should look like this...

Stream (
Priority ( 6 )
Triggers ( 2
Discrete_Trigger ( 10 StartLoopRelease ( 1 File ( "NathanM3.wav" -1 ) SelectionMethod ( SequentialSelection ) ) )
Discrete_Trigger ( 11 ReleaseLoopReleaseWithJump () )
)
FrequencyCurve(
SpeedControlled
CurvePoints ( 3
-99 22050
0 22050
99 22050
)
Granularity ( 0 )
)
)

Hope that helps some.

1. I'm using the Shay D .sms files that came with the sound package as well as a Lunkenheimer 3-chime from Fleegle411. I have made no changes except for adding a Lunkenheimer 3-chime and changing the frequency for that whistle. Plus, I'm still a tiny bit unsure whether twelve chuffs per revolution is right or not.
2. It worked. The exterior horn was immediately fixed, but the interior horn couldn't decide whether it was an E2-B1 or a tiny M3. After quite a bit of tinkering, it now has an M3 in both views.

[midneguy]

Hey Dustin!

Steve mentioned something about questions from the ShayD sounds so I just found this thread.

The shay should have 6 exhaust beats per revolution of the "motor", so your assumption about something being amiss if you're hearing 12 is correct. My hunch is that the frequency curves will need to be adjusted to fix the particular model you're trying to use the sounds on. The ShayD sound upgrade was my attempt at using Brandon Smith's techniques and applying them to a Shay. In many cases (excluding AI / Helper sounds which always need tweaked for individual models) a Brandon style .sms design can be "dropped in" and will work on other locomotives. I have seen a few examples where I've tried to copy a .sms to a locomotive and it won't work without adjustment though - I'm not sure why, but I suspect it might have to do with how the model was animated?

Anyway, because Shays are unique beasts, my suspicion is that even using Brandon's techniques will still require the .sms to be fine tuned to inidivual engines. With conventional steamers the frequency curves follow the wheel rotation, based on wheel diameter. For the Shays it gets messy since you have different wheel diameters from engine to engine, then on top of that you add the additional variable of the gear reduction between the wheels and the "motor". This additional gear reduction (and how it was animated relative to the wheels) will more than likely mess up the synchronization of the ShayD sound upgrade when copied to another.

So, at the end of the day you'll probably have to adjust the frequencies in the Variable1Controlled curves until they fit the Shay you're trying to work with.

Derek

[mipman25]

I halved the frequencies and now both of my problems are fixed. Now I just need to see how I can install the Feather River Route without getting errors

EDIT- Apparently, the sound seems to cut out once I reach about 10 miles per hour. Could this have something to do with what I did?

[midneguy]

Dustin,

It sounds like for that particular engine you must be exceeding the top speed (Variable1) that the "chug" sounds were defined for. So, give this a try:

Go to the Stream labeled as "Exhaust Fast"

In the triggers section look for "Variable_Trigger ( Variable1_Inc_Past 24 ....." and "Variable_Trigger ( Variable1_Dec_Past 24 ....." lines

Increase the 24 to a higher number like 26 or 28

What you probably have happening is the Variable1 value for your engine is exceeding 24 at the speed you're going - raising this number will add more room at the top speed for the "Exhaust Fast" stream.

In the frequency curve, change the 24.5 to be .5 higher than whatever number you chose for the upper trigger (26.5, 28.5, etc)

Make sure you make the same adjustments in both the cab and eng .sms files so they match.

This should probably work OK since the "Exhaust Fast" stream is fit pretty loosely to start with. At that speed the chugs tend to run all together so you shouldn't hear much negative effect.

Derek

[Noisemaker]

I think Derek's nickname should be 'Speed'. Good stuff Derek! This is where I get all befuddled with SMS's myself. May try applying your lesson to a couple of quirky diesels I have. Wish the speed was conducive to the variable amount in the sms. Best I can garner it's a little over double - like trying to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit all the time.