Legacy Diesel Sounds?

I have yet to hear a quilled horn that I like. I find the  sounds to be squeaky and dissonant and not at all prototypical.  It seemed to me from the start that this function was designed for steam whistles and works quite well in most cases.  If the horn slide control is good for anything on a diesel, it provides for good control of the length of the sound for engineers to manipulate.

Conductor Earl         

My Legacy CP F3's mid quill is much better than full quill.  It's a rich, echo sound, almost two tone. On full it's sound  is flat and monotone.  It's probably correct but I seldom go full quill.  Rich

Your ear is correct. This is prototypical behavior. As the steam pressure increases, a whistle's pitch goes up. However, for a diesel air horn, who's oscillation is created by a flapping metal diaphragm, as air pressure increases, the pitch goes DOWN.

As far as holding a constant intensity, there is no difference in cab remote operation, a given thumb pressure on a CAB1L, or a particular lever position with a cab2 will always generate the same consistent result from a given sound set, regardless of steam vs. diesel. Of course, some whistles have more dramatic variation in sound, other less.

As to consonant vs. dissonant sounds within a single whistle, this too is prototypical. Different length chimes change pitch in different amounts. Therefore, the relationship between notes (in musical terms, the chord type - minor, major, diminished, etc) will  change, as well as transpose) as a horn or whistle is played over its range. 

Rudy Trubitt

Director of Audio

Lionel, LLC

This horn recording is of a dual Leslie A200. At medium pressure, there is an audible pitch difference between the two chimes. The result is a "beating" between two similar, but not exactly equal pitches. As the pressure increased on that particular horn, one chime dropped a little lower in pitch and the two were in tune at higher pressure. The beat frequency went away which is why the louder blow has a different character. 

Rudy, thanks for the great description.  I had wondered about the differences with the horns, that all makes perfect sense.  We don't have the real thing to experiment with, so it's good to know how it works.

Thanks Rudy for your excellent explanation.  Rich

I appreciate your insight Rudy and feel I have a somewhat better understanding of what we have here. Tonight I took the sharks to our club layout and gave them some track time. I played with the horn a bit but wasn't able to pay real close attention as we did a lot of talking it was disruptive.

I'll have to pursue this further as my initial impression is that at present I much prefer the RS5 horns in several other earlier diesels. They are by far louder and richer than our Legacy horns.

The background engine sounds are fantastic however. 

Legacy Sharks bought at York!  Probably my second best sounding engine next to the 844.

Those certainly are handsome units Marty - I think that is my favorite scheme for the sharks with the D&H a close second.

Those start-up sounds are terrific as are the running sounds with their many subtle differences. I'll have to play around some more with my use of the quilling feature to find my favorite tone!

Have just not had enough time on the Legacy system as I bought mine just as our layout was coming down so I have very little track time on any of my Legacy equipment...

One's response to sound is an entirely personal and subjective experience. Everyone likes what they like and it is instructive for me to hear folks' preferences.

It is a privilege to make sounds for such passionate and engaged listeners.

IMO the radio chatter EFX on the Sharks are probably the best I've heard.  The squelching and such is really well done.  And they have a great volume range!

Agreed