We’ve had some lovely feedback for the Audio work done on Antelope Line, as part of our trip to California to record real-life sounds from the route and the F125 As we’re UK-based, getting authentic sounds for US content can be a huge undertaking for our Audio team, so we’d like to ask for your help. If you have direct access to and can record real-life sounds (safely, and with permission) – or have recorded them in the past (YouTube videos and non-in situ recordings aren’t what we’re looking for, apologies), we’ve set up this thread where we can chat to you about them. While we know the US is where we struggle the most we would love to here from others from any region too so please use this thread to contact us. If there are people out there in the community that you think we should be talking to then again we want to hear from you. Thank you in advance!
I live in San Diego, very close to LA and I could give some very good audio from trains in San Diego-LA
Audio is the unsung hero of anything that seeks to emulate reality. It can tip average into greatness, and otherwise greatness into utter failure. Its that important. Its also not just the units and rolling stock that's critical. The murmur of conversations, traffic, birds, wind noise over the cab, rail joint wheel sounds, points wheel sounds, suspension clatter all combine to provide a bridge to suspend reality and immerse the user into that world. This is why I'm happy to see this post. Any effort that goes into improving this aspect of TSW will likely have a magnified albeit unsung effect on the overall perceived quality of the product.
I live close enough to the Antelope Valley route that I can hear the horn in the morning. Not sure what exactly I can do to help but I'll certainly do whatever's possible.
Please if anyone could record an SD40-2 and improve the engine sounds , horn and rail joint sounds i would really appreciate that!
Hello I work in an office building directly across from the Route 128 Station in Westwood, Massachusetts. Also, Canton is the next town over so I’m close to Canton Junction and Canton Center. On my way home I pass by Mansfield Station. I’m happy to help out what would I need to do?
Hi Everyone. It's great to see that the post has been viewed so many times. Thanks to those that have responded to our plea. I will respond to each of them. Ideally we are looking for anyone who has direct access to the locomotives and can record them themselves or help us come and record them. Or even has the recordings themselves. To give a bit of context as to the level of recordings we ideally need I'll explain why having access to locomotives is the better option. It's all about controlling the situation a bit. For example when it comes to diesel engines being able to go through each notch and hold it at each notch for a good amount of time allows us to get good loops together. Doing these kind of things from a platform or a train passing by doesn't give us all the notches we need to recreate the sound in game unfortunately. And then there are all the finer details. Things like Air Con and switches that have an effect on another system and the like. Being able to spend good amounts of time with the locomotive and a driver/engineer allows us to run through all these kinds of things. I realise that we can't always get everything but I just wanted to give a very brief overview of why we have said that in-situ (platform/pass-by) and Youtube videos aren't what we're looking for ideally. Please do keep reaching out though.
I can not help you with recordings in this regard as I don't live near railroads nor trains you probably consider to be recorded currently, however let me give my two cents to the conversation as someone who gained some knowledge about sounds and recording as a hobby. What I understood of what you are looking for seems to be both, 1. someone who has access to a locomotive but also 2. the knowledge and most of all the equipment to record the sounds properly. In other words, f.e. a train driver/service employee with a hobby of making recordings or music production when being home. I would give my word that this will be kind of hard to find. Also you need to assure how the sound was recorded, which is an important part of any record or recording. Is it a recording with a smartphone or a 400$ field mic? Is it recorded in mono only or is it a stereo field recording? What about background noise like the humming from the engine or wind needed to be canceled out by some extra accessoires, which only really pros have. Which quality you chose as the recording format? 48 kHz, 32 bit WAV or just 128 kbps mp3? You might say it wouldn't matter because you compress the final file anyways to make it fit into the game files, but it in fact matters a lot to the end product. All of that makes a huge difference, and you can of need to agree at the point that noone really have the gear you had in the video ready to do so, even if they had the knowledge. So this kind of way to approach to people here seems unrealistic and not successful to me. What I would advice to do if DTG can't afford getting people & gear in the place where you want them have, is just finding local sound, TV or recording studios with people who know what they do and have the necessary equipment and find a way to give them access to these locomotives. P.S. I can't understand of the text, if you are doing this only for future add-on DLCs. But it would be very nice if this plan also covers to record some authentic sound of past or current locos, f.e. the Talent 1. Many people complain about this in the new Vorarlberg DLC.
There's also ap for that. From their last newsletter, they were able to get new recordings for the 37 and will update their packs once done which dtg could buy
Sadly, I don't think very many people in the US actually has the proper equipment or access that DTG is looking for as far as sound recordings go. One of the only people that did was Woody with Searchlight Simulations, but DTG burned that bridge years ago. Outside of that I doubt DTG can get someone to help them unless they actually know people or the industry.
... which is kinda the purpose of this post. We do have some contacts, and we'd like to widen that out - we know a lot of industry folks view the forums even if they don't post much, and this is a call out to them. We've already had a couple of great contacts come in as a result. I'm just not sure what the point of your post was to be honest Robert. Our Audio team know full well the technical requirements for recording (it's kinda their job...) and we've already stipulated that we're not looking for amateur youtube style recordings. We're also looking to this in two different ways - one is those who can actually do recordings locally (and honestly, you'd be surprised how many people DO have sufficient equipment for the job these days, it surprised me too) and we're also looking for people who can facilitate our team turning up to do a recording session as well. They'll go anywhere they need to do to recordings if we can get the on-site access and approvals sorted. They also carefully look at any material supplied, expect to be told what equipment and settings were used to record it and then verify if the resulting recording meets the same standards they need to put it in the game. As I say... we already have non-industry people, rail industry people, and youtube people (and others) that we talk to who DO have the right equipment already for their personal use and can arrange approval within their local teams, so this is not as off the wall a request as it may seem. Access is incredibly difficult to obtain in some areas - and the Class 1 railroads in the US are a key example of this, they are a blanket no for access if you approach via the normal official means. New York railroads too, all the sounds we have for e.g. LIRR and Harlem we got from railfans and youtubers who sent us their high quality original source recordings (BEFORE messed up by YouTube) and subsequently went out to do recordings for us to fill in gaps. It'd be great if everyone was as open-door as Amtrak, Metrolink, Caltrain and other operators but... they have a railroad to run and its not always possible for them to arrange, so this is us saying "anyone out there can help? get in touch!". Absolute worst case, nothing comes of this and nothing happens. Best case, great contacts, great audio, and happy players enjoying great experiences. There is absolutely no downside to Adam's request. None at all. Matt.
Well, I just spoke about my personal point of view about the situation. My response was to this sentence by Adam: I meant that I don't think it's high probably that you find both, 1. an audiophile with high-end equipment and 2. having access to a loco, in the same person + finding it here in this forum. If you would create a google ad which accumalates hundreds of thousands of views within a few days and attracts people who are unfamilar with DTG and TSW, then I would have a different opinion about it. I said nothing against the professionalism of your recording team. We can see it in the video how they work. There is no point in critisizing them. But your audio team will not be there to record the audio as said in the original post. It will be the person who you are looking for here. It doesn't how you sort them out later in your studio, as the loss of quality is usally done directly at the recording itself and merely can be restored or repaired afterwards, not even by the most renowned professionalists in the recording business. If this is true, it really surprises me much as well. I were active in some forums for recording and only less people had good equipment to do field recordings. A couple of years ago, I had a Olympus LS-14 which could have been perfect for what you are looking for but it broke and as I said I do not live near locos nor railways your looking for to help you out with it. That's actually what I proposed at the end of my first post: With "people & gear" I meant your recording team. But yes, that the right way. Finding people to get access to locos, and then get other professionalists with the necessary equipment (or your recording team - but in the main post Adam cited that you have difficulties to get your team to anywhere in the world) to the locos.
I think my wording here has not come across very well so apologies. What I meant is that we are looking for anyone who has direct access to any locomotives who can then help to arrange for us to come and record them. If they can record them themselves then that is always a bonus as it may mean less restrictions when it comes to having us on site somewhere. But if someone already has recordings too then we still want to hear from them too. And it’s not a case of not being able to afford to send us out. That’s not the issue. The biggest issue for us is, like Matt said, getting access to trains (especially in the US). If we can get access to them then we would definitely send a team from DTG out there. As Matt said we have already had a few promising leads but these have been for the UK (which we’re still very grateful for) so we are still looking for some US contacts in some of the Class 1 freight ideally. But anything we can get is welcome.
Audio in general coukd do with a rinse over Adam. It's great to have authentic traction and stock, but if it inhabits a lifeless (in audio terms) world then the package as a whole is under reaching. So much is good, but audio is one of the key drivers for immersion. In that sense, there is much that is missing or which coukd be improved.
Please let me know what you think is missing. I need specifics though as saying “there is much missing” doesn’t give me a lot to go on. We have put a lot more time and effort into ambiences which I believe have made a marked improvement but I’m here to listen to how we can continue to improve.
Thanks for responding Adam. Probably not the answer that helps either of us but aside from those ideas below id need to spend some time drilling down to really feed back something useful. I haven't yet tried TSW4 for various reasons so i dont know if these have been implemented, but things like air noise over the cab that varies with speed, the thunk of air hitting the train when another passes in the opposite direction, station ambience that is too canned or missing, that's the areas that I notice could do with some work. I appreciate I need to go away and refine my answer to make it useful to you but from a workflow perspective, if you played it blindfold coukd you differentiate speeds by ambient airflow, or a busy station with lots of passengers from a less busy one, or a coffee shop from a platform.. Otherwise as I say, generally it's really good, but it lacks that Wow factor that makes me feel like I'm actually in the world.
Between 4 min and 4.40 ish of the following you get a sense of the wind noise element. Different genre but again it's that immersion aspect, not the technically specific element that is present. Interesting story- I spoke with a guy who almost had a fatal low altitude low speed event while flying. He said he knew it was serious because he couldnt hear the airflow anymore. The significance of ambient auditory inputs in a real world setting... Ive chosen this example not because its the most important, but rather because it is illustrative of the point im trying to make.
Conversely at 28.30 in the following the sounds of the train are excellent, but the world is utterly lifeless from an auditory perspective. https://www.youtube.com/live/ZPq3gDICd0Q?si=Bt6cTpdJQPdugOWq
I think that an expansion to the tunnel and bridge reverb you have introduced which incidentally has made a great enhancement (some would disagree) to the immersion, but adding these sounds to trackside walls buildings and bridge parapets would go a long way to the world being more convincing, those sounds just need flattening out so they are not so erm reverby (is that a word?) just my tuppence worth.
The apology doesn't change anything at the fact that Adam used a somehow confusing wording with a different meaning in the first place. Before insulting anyone, I would rather proof facts.
Well let’s just put that all to bed now. I’ve apologised for getting my wording wrong. Now you know what I meant to say we can get back to assisting me if you can. You can always PM me too if you’d prefer to reach out about access opportunities rather than in a public post.
While it might take me a little bit, I’d probably be able to get access to additional Metrolink recordings. Not sure if that’s anything you guys would desire at this point. I will admit, the sounds for Metrolink are probably the best out of any of your US content. I’ll give credit where credit is due. You guys did do good on getting accurate recordings. Some stuff could use minor volume adjustments like the F125 bell from inside the cab and the door closing beep from the cabcar which is way too loud. But that’s besides the overall point of this thread for right now. If there’s anything you might desire there, please let me know and I’ll do my best. Feel free to send me a PM if necessary!
A-are you guys not going to fix the Class 801's running sound?? Its currently a electro star running sound and shouldve been completely different??
They don't have sound recordings. Dtg are trying to work with lner to record 801 running sounds. But without original sound recordings, they can't really do anything
The running sounds for the Class 8xx series are the exact same sounds from AP’s sound pack as this was the best we were able to do at the time. We are still pursuing conversations with both Hitachi and LNER to get our own running sound recordings but as you can imagine this not a easy or quick conversation but I can assure you it has not been forgotten.
limited because you often can't actually move the trains or if you can only very slowly - which i'll take over nothing, but for a soundset it kinda needs to be on the mainline. same applies to things on preserved railways - you can only record up to 25mph and then it's wizardry to fake the rest. Matt.
YouTube uses an awful kind of sound compression like that of modern sound production studios where everything in an audio recording is the same volume and there is no space for frequency response, so that a "remastered" audio file doesn't sound as good as even an original CD. What are the most useful audio formats for sound recordings for use in TSW?
As with everything sound-related, conventional wisdom is to use any standard lossless format such as .wav with PCM coding and a suitably high bitrate (>=44.1 kHz) and suitably high bit depth (>=16 bits). If you need to modulate the sound, higher bit rates and bit depths are typically a good idea.
I just found this thread. If you're still searching for people with direct access, I would like to assist you in the future. I'm a train driver in Germany and I do have access to various EMU's, DMU's, as well as some locos and coaches. The only thing where I can't directly help, are freight wagons. But maybe I could find some contact, which would be a case to case choice. Anyway, If I could assist you, feel free to dm me
If this suggestion helps. Would it be possible that DTG could reach out to DCC sound companies like ESU or SoundTraxx and some American Model Train makers like ScaleTrains, Athearn Genesis for possible collaborations? I know Shame Wilson from ScaleTrains is a great guy to speak to and they have made some sound fitted GE Tier 4 GEVO's, AC4400CW's and ES44 GEVO's as well. So they might be able to help DTG on this. Also they did the sound their model of the GE GTEL Big Blow turbine locomotive that has been done in N and HO scale. Maybe they can help. Try reaching out and see what happens.
If you have a contact for Shane then by all means reach out to me through DM and I’m happy to send them an email to see if there is anything they can help with. We have tried these sorts of avenues before and have actually tried getting in touch with ESU on multiple occasions and never had a response so I think it’s safe to say they aren’t interested. Most of these companies don’t going into the same level of detail in terms of all the switches/safety systems/aircon/doors etc but they do cover some of the big hitters like engines/traction motors and horns so I’ve always wanted to see what they can offer. Unfortunately I just don’t get responses from them. So please if people have contacts I will try them.
Hi All I know It's not entirely related to this thread, sorry but i didn't think it warranted a thread of its own, it would be nice to have different volume sliders for the sounds in the cab as my guess is most audio is mixed for headphone users (to my ears it sounds that way) i cant speak for everyone but i use a 5.1 speaker setup for good immersion and sometimes the sound mix just seems off, more granular control over the sound levels in cab could go along way to help gloss over poorer sound samples. Again sorry if this is a bit off topic. Take Care and Merry Christmas all Gary
Can't believe with all the money DTG charge for TSW + DLC's they cannot send someone out to do the recordings on trains, after all they have the licence no? They could even rent equipment in the US if they were that tight no?
The slight problem of getting permission from the carriers. Most railroads are in the business of making money so dedicating a unit with the associated expense of the train crew, the liability of having the team on the locomotive and on railroad property all for nothing that helps the railroad makes it a non starter for most companies. In fact I am sort of surprised that they have gotten the access they have to get the recordings they have gotten. Seriously, if it was as easy as grabbing a recorder and flipping a switch, I am sure it would have been accomplished a long time ago.
I get where you are coming from but trains elsewhere in the UK and Europe are also in the business of making money and they seem to cope with a mic and recorder. Perhaps they could even get the drivers to do it as they did in the UK no? Perhaps they have already tried this if so I don't really understand why American Railways are so anti if indeed they are.
