Trainz/Kinds/kind enginesound

KIND Enginesound assets are locomotive enginesounds customized to the type of locomotion prime mover in the Locomotive. Kind Enginesound will also often be seen by KUID references in other rolling stock, for even freight cars make noise.

There are three types of Locomotive prime mover power plants - Diesel, Electric, and Steam.

Diesel enginesounds are formed of a number of separate s. These are 'steady state' sounds (one for each runlevel from 1 up to 8) and 'transition' sounds (used when going between one runlevel and the next one up, or next one down). Diesel locomotion is more correctly termed diesel-electric, for the diesel most often turns a dynamo producing electric power, and the wheels are torqued by electric motors. When acceleration is a factor, the reverse torque from the wheels creates what might be thought of as reverse power surges, which can be seen on the panel meters: as the applied-torque builds, the amperage peaks up higher; as the speed picks up, the reflected power and counter-torque drop and the meters indicate a lesser stable current use. In real locomotive driving, a major part of the operator's job is to accelerate as fast as possible whilst keeping such peaking power requirements within acceptable range limits; otherwise things break, burn up and catch fire!

Electric enginesounds play one wave file, but pitch shift it to produce a continuously variable sound linked to the speed of the train. (Note: If your electric needs it's enginesound linked to throttle position rather than train speed, it's better to use a 'diesel' style 'ramping' sound). Electric locomotion has the same reverse torque reflection power demands, and the ammeters will operate the same. The biggest difference in sound, is the power is remotely provided at high voltage and stepped down to supply motive currents. The loading sounds prevalent in diesels, take place in the dynamo's of the power station. Hence electric locomotion reflects only motor noises.

Steam enginesounds play a number of individual 'chuff' files at low speed, and switch to a series of pitch-shifted loop sounds at higher speeds.

Note: Trainz knows that a specific enginesound is a 'steam' enginesound simply because it's used on a steam locomotive KIND.

Supported Tags
kind "enginesound" speedup 2.2 isramping 1 isfading 0 number-slow-sounds 4 number-cylinders 2 number-power-strokes 2 engine-sound-ramp-up-durations 0.0,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5 engine-sound-ramp-down-durations 0.0,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5

speedup

 * Data Type: Decimal
 * Description: Controls the rate of pitch change for an electric type enginesound. A value of 1.0 would mean the top frequency used is as much again as the base frequency - in other words, the frequency of the sound played would double over the speed range of the vehicle.

isramping

 * Data Type: Boolean
 * Description: 'Ramping' diesel enginesounds have transition sounds between each level state.

isfading

 * Data Type: Boolean
 * Description: For diesel engine sounds, 'fading' sounds do not have transition sounds between each level state - instead, one sound is faded into the next to 'fake' a transition. For electric enginesounds, 'fading' sounds are quieter at low speed and louder at high speed - whereas 'non-fading' sounds are more constant across the speed range.

number-slow-sounds

 * Data Type: Integer
 * Description: Number of 'chuff' sounds available in a steam enginesound.

number-cylinders

 * Data Type: Integer
 * Description: Number of cylinders in the locomotive the steam sound was recorded from.

number-power-strokes

 * Data Type: Integer
 * Description: Number of power strokes in the locomotive the steam enginesound was recorded from (should generally be left at the default, 2).

engine-sound-ramp-up-durations

 * New tag for trainz-build 3.6
 * Data Type: List of 8 Decimal values. Default values: 1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5. Units: seconds to 3 decimal places
 * Description: Sets the duration of play of each of the 8 soundfiles, "start.wav" and "up 1 - 2.wav" to "up 7 - 8.wav" files. Value must not be greater than the duration of the corresponding sound file.


 * If there is no "start.wav" then enter 0 as the first number in the set.

engine-sound-ramp-down-durations

 * New tag for trainz-build 3.6
 * Data Type: List of 8 Decimal values. Default values: 1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5,1.5. Units: seconds to 3 decimal places


 * Description: Sets the duration of play of each of the 8 soundfiles, "stop.wav" and "down 2 - 1.wav" to "down 8 - 7.wav" files. Value must not be greater than the duration of the corresponding sound file.


 * If there is no "stop.wav" then enter 0 as the first number in the set.


 * Refer to for usage examples.

engine-sound-ramp-duration

 * New tag for trainz-build 3.6; likely illegal in prior TBVs.
 * Data Type: Decimal. Default value: 1.5
 * Description: Sets the duration of play of all up and down ramp sounds. All ramp sound files should be the same duration to use this tag.

Diesel
Sample for a diesel type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound" isramping 1 isfading 0 engine-sound-ramp-up-durations 14.706,7.086,4.241,4.861,3.017,2.245,2.278,5.119 engine-sound-ramp-down-durations 12.286,7.086,4.241,4.861,3.017,2.245,2.278,5.119

Electric
Sample for an electric type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound" isramping 0 isfading 0 speedup 4.0

Steam
Sample for a steam type 'enginesound' asset, with the Standard Tags excluded for brevity:

kind "enginesound" number-slow-sounds 4 number-cylinders 2 number-power-strokes 2

Diesel
In a 'fading' diesel enginesound, the following sound files are used:

In a 'ramping' diesel enginesound, the following additional sound files are also used:

Electric
The one sound file for an electric engine is named engine_loop.wav.

Steam
These are background sounds for when the loco is stationary. The fast will be played when the loco has just stopped, and if it is left for a while, the sound will progress down to 'med' and then eventually 'slow'.

... and on up to the number specified in the 'number-slow-sounds' tag. These sounds are the low speed 'chuff' sounds.

This is a background hiss noise that appears to be played continually.

These loops are played as the loco picks up speed. They are individually stretched or squashed in length (also incurring pitch shifting in the process) to match the wheel rotation speed so the audible 'chuffs' within the loop maintain synchronisation with the drive bogie animation.

It should be noted that unlike the earlier steam loop, which was based on track speed, rather than wheel rotation speed, this system enables sound files to be shared between locomotives with different wheel sizes. 60RPM (which is one revolution per second) on a 2 cylinder loco will produce four chuffs per second irrespective of the wheel size - the only difference this makes is what speed the train will be doing when the drive wheels are rotating at 60RPM.

Any individual file can be omitted from this set - the system will use what files are available and use adjacent files to cover for any missing files.

It is anticipated that a sound creator will pick and choose which wave files are used based on what recordings are available, and that a released enginespec will not have all sound files present - particularly the higher speed ones, which are likely to be irrelevant for most locos, but are provided just in case...

Notes, Footnotes & References
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