Sound effects

[billydot]

I got a set of Morris dancers for Christmas. Almost finished painting them. Will have them in a pub car park. Would be nice to have some sound effects, ie. morris dance type music in the background. Any bright ideas how to achieve this. ?

[Bigmet]

If you really must, then there's recordings online, such as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXM7ZuFMq0

[Chops]

Sounds brilliant. If you ever shoot video, it is fun to download and use music for a background. It is interesting how different music changes the "feel" of any given video. FYI, there is a LOT of sound effects ranging from locomotives to thunderclaps available free to download and from subscription sites.

Another method for consideration, relatively low tech, is to record a piece of Morris dancing to a continuous loop cassette and have it playing under the layout, from an old cassette player, in the vicinity of the "dancers," having drilled holes in the baseboard to allow the sound to filter up.

In this day and age, I assume there must be micro units that can digitally record and play back any downloaded sound or music.

I watched the linked video. It is charming and delightful.

[stevegant]

I have used one of these to create background station noise.

https://www.talkingproducts.com/collections/mp3-sound-chips-promotional-products/products/mp3-sound-chip-module-4mb-promotional

For £11.40 it works perfectly. Simply plug it into your computer via USB and copy over the sound you want as an MP3 file. It is then triggered by pushing the button. Depending on MP3 quality you can get up to 8 minutes of play back. I did replace the switch with a bigger one to make it easier to operate.

[Dad-1]

Hi All & stevegant in particular.

When I started my St Oval layout I wanted to add sound. The idea was to use a battery powered CD 'walkman'
to play sounds to speakers mounted in 1) the Pub; 2) the Chapel. I have the speakers mounted, but never got it
working because the output from the speakers was too low, even at maximum volume.
The second problem was my idea that by recording each individual sound onto one of the stereo channels I could
play both different sounds from the same CD player at the same time. I really don't think the stereo separation
would have been adequate and I never worked out how to burn CD's with the two totally different sound channels.

That module as linked by stevegant could be the answer, O.K I'd need 2, but it revives the original ideas I had. It
just goes to show how technology has moved on in the last 10- 15 years.

Geoff T.

[billydot]

Thanks for all the replies. Much food for thought. Thought I might go down the route of recording the sound onto my phone and then replaying it close to the layout via a concealed bluetooth cube speaker.

[Bigmet]

...The second problem was my idea that by recording each individual sound onto one of the stereo channels I could
play both different sounds from the same CD player at the same time. I really don't think the stereo separation
would have been adequate and I never worked out how to burn CD's with the two totally different sound channels...

What this requires is two simultaneous mono inputs to the CD recorder. Without spending money on a mixing desk or some clever PC s/w, easy to arrange by using analogue tape to create the mono masters on a pair of tape decks. ( I am sure I won't have been the only fond elder brother who would compile cassettes as gifts for his sisters, with combinations of whatever popular Dreck they favoured on each channel; one particularly successful combo I recall was Bay City Rollers and David Cassidy.)

The separation of the two channels on CD is absolute, so provided there is no crosstalk in the replay amplification, the sounds are reproduced independently.

[Bufferstop]

Long before software that could mix I had a Y splitter for RCA line level jacks. With two tape decks mixing a pair of tracks down to one was easy enough, putting the two totally unsync. tracks into a pair was a real pita. The problem being the ultrasonic biassing signal spilling onto a parallel track. It invariably part erased the first track to be recorded, so a third tape deck was required so that you could play back to re record both mixed down tracks at once. Add to that the response degradation each time you re recorded and the horrendous cross talk on 4 track tape or stereo cassette playback it was a miracle we ever got a recording that was useable. I remember the first time I saw software master tapes being cascade copied to multiple drives. I asked wasn't degradation on each subsequent copy a problem. Nope came the reply as long as the playback can distinguish the highs from the lows the next generation was perfect. Hallelujah, the holy grail of pirate copying, had the lousy audio quality not already made me go legit.
Turning two stereo recordings into two parallel mono non synchronous tracks using just one computer is a doddle, especially as I can't imagine any reason for wanting to synchronise them, leave them as mono and different lengths then put the on looping play back. They might start together but then become apparently random.

[Dad-1]

I only ever had the one tape deck, in fact still have it permanently connected into the Hi-Fi set.
Not that I use it even once a year ! Once I could hear the different tape hiss between Chrome Tapes and Ferritic,
now my hearings so blunted I can stand Mini Ripperton and Kate Bush.

Who thought railway modelling was all about watching a train going around a small oval !!

Geoff T.

[Bufferstop]

Same here with the hearing, our physics teacher, well he played rugger for England at which he was great, he knew his physics but was a bit down on the psychology of 6th formers. He started the section on hearing range and had to do mine three times before he'd believe my upper limit. I then had the upper hand, he'd ask if anyone could hear a very high note, and the rest of the conspirators would look to me for a yay or nay. For some reason we dropped accoustics as a second year section. These days it's the upper limit that's optional, if I want it down I just click the rocker behind my ear down a couple of notches and any screeching popster suddenly goes all mellow.

[Dad-1]

Sounds we don't hear !!
Bufferstop when I had the snubber connected on Green Frog Brewery layout Stephen said he couldn't stay
near as the high pitch scream was driving him nuts. Me I couldn't hear a thing !!

I'm now looking for a 5V to 12V whooping siren that the plan is to have switched on by a IRDOT when a wagon reaches
the trigger. Why ? Simply to distract and entertain those undertaking shunting !! Wouldn't mind a duck quack simulator
to go at the extreme other end. Crazy, but fun ????

Geoff T.

[billydot]

Thanks again chaps. Particularly stevegant, looks ideal. Went and bought one. All I need now is some Morris Dancing music, pity youtube have now stopped you downloading stuff from there.

[Buelligan]

Hi All & stevegant in particular.

When I started my St Oval layout I wanted to add sound. The idea was to use a battery powered CD 'walkman'
to play sounds to speakers mounted in 1) the Pub; 2) the Chapel. I have the speakers mounted, but never got it
working because the output from the speakers was too low, even at maximum volume.
The second problem was my idea that by recording each individual sound onto one of the stereo channels I could
play both different sounds from the same CD player at the same time. I really don't think the stereo separation
would have been adequate and I never worked out how to burn CD's with the two totally different sound channels.

That module as linked by stevegant could be the answer, O.K I'd need 2, but it revives the original ideas I had. It
just goes to show how technology has moved on in the last 10- 15 years.

Geoff T.

I'm fairly sure you can set which speaker sounds come out of in Garageband which is standard software on a Mac. I'm sure there must be a similar type of programme for windows.