Creating a Soundscape for Your Railway
Gormo’s back with another “How To” from his shed down under. This time he’s looking at how to create a relaxing….( or maybe not relaxing?) soundscape to add to your railway. We quite often see beautiful layouts with great sounding locos and yet no other sounds like traffic, birds, sheep, industrial noise, station announcements. etc.etc.etc. This can add a new dimension to a layout just as sound has added new dimension to locos. What do you think?
Gormo stole my thunder!!! ( See my way for sounds using old mobile phones.) OK, Gormo’s may sound better but what a lot of hardware!!!!
Sour grapes? what me!!!!!
A long time ago somebody put us onto a Portable Speaker that had a dual purpose. Just record any Sound onto a mini-SD Card, insert it and play !! The Speaker actual lit up when switched on, and if hidden inside a Building (e.g. Railway Station) would illuminate the interior, and (as was suggested) also play pre-recorded Train arrivals & departures. It was a KAIDAER MN02, very much like the ubiquitous Wi-Fi or Bluetooth versions people have around the House today, but sadly the Kaidaer is/was just an unconnected stand-alone. Nevertheless… it did exactly what it was supposed to, and it was great fun recording Station announcements saying things like “The 14:27 Virgin Trains Service to Plymouth has been cancelled”