http://www.railsimulator.com/en/sound bites.htm
We are pleased to introduce you to Steve Taylor, our Sound Engineer for Rail Simulator. He's going to talk to us about his recent research trip to Germany to record the Deutsche Bahn BR 101, all for the purpose of giving the simulated engine a truly realistic sound.
Progress on the DB101's audio was going slow - so I traveled to Germany in early January 2007 to record the electric DB Class 101 train. The recording session took place at the Deutsche Bahn maintenance workshop in the city of Dessau, located in the Saxony-Anhalt region, 110 km south west of Berlin. This region was part of East Germany until German reunification in October 1990 and the majority of Dessau's architecture is the concrete slab construction which is so emblematic of the ex-communist states.
Deutsche Bahn (DB) was founded on January 1, 1994, a combination of the former state railways of East and West Germany. The Dessau workshop has since become the main centre for electric train maintenance and repair in Germany.
Upon arrival at the facility I was greeted by my host for the day, Michael Schanz. Michael is an employee of DB Netz based in Frankfurt, the division responsible for network infrastructure and services, essentially the German equivalent of the British company Network Rail. Like most British people I am strictly monolingual so Michael provided invaluable assistance throughout the day with his excellent English language skills and translation!
A wide selection of German and also Swiss trains were present in the workshop during my visit. It took us 5 minutes to walk from one end of the building to the other, alongside a busy traverser running the full length, depositing trains into the various specialised repair bays and pits.
Finally at the far end of the workshop we set our eyes upon DB 101 078, the train which DB had kindly made available for sound recording while it underwent routine maintenance in Dessau. The 101 is a class of three-phase electric locomotives built by Adtranz, DB 101 078 being one of 145 locomotives built between 1996 and 1999 to replace the 30-year old and aging Class 103. Not only is the Class 101 the flagship of German railroads but its close relative the ALP-46 is also in regular use in the USA, providing services to Penn Station in New York on the New Jersey Transit railway. In RailSim the 101 will be the main engine used in the commuter scenarios of our Hagen-Siegen route.
We met the Engineer responsible for the train and climbed up into the cab, shut the doors, and
There are several types of environmental noise which are always in the forefront of a sound recordist's mind when embarking on such a project. Recording inside the workshop would obviously be very hard due to the presence of loud machinery and the general clatter. A more subtle consideration is for us to record the 'driest' sound possible; we cannot record the sounds in a large reverberant space. In Rail Simulator we are using EAX reverb technology to simulate the different sonic locations you would encounter on a modern rail route, such as the reverberant interiors of large mainline stations, tunnels and sheds.
Once connected to the reverser, we head outside into a quieter area of the Yard away from other traffic. Luckily the weather was not typical for January, blue skies and barely any wind are perfect conditions for recording. The 101 is the sole electric train in RailSim and provides a unique recording challenge in comparison to our other Loco's. The train is powered by 15 kV 16.7 Hz overhead lines which produce a strong magnetic field that can play havoc with sensitive recording equipment. After performing some initial recording tests I found several suitable positions of the microphone in relation to the power lines which limited the chance of any magnetic interference. Upon visual inspection, most of the recordings featured a steady 16.7 Hz tone, but as this frequency is well below the lower range of human hearing it was a simple and non-invasive process to remove it in the studio.
The first task was to record the sound of the Pantograph being raised and lowered. Luckily due to the humid weather conditions the Pantograph made some very satisfying arcing sounds as it made contact with the power lines. The train was now running in idle and I recorded the gentle throb emanating from the traction engines.
When you drive the 101 in RailSim you will hear two main sounds coming from the Engine. The first sound is the steady whine of the traction engines, which is very similar in timbre to a sustained violin note. The second sound is mainly provided by the compressor and power unit inside the engine. This second sound is very recognisable to regular electric train commuters, a tone which, initially, rises smoothly in pitch as the train increases speed, but often jumping up in discernable steps as the train reaches higher speeds.
Several techniques were used to capture takes of the engine sound in motion. Luckily the sound of the traction engines kicks in first at very low speeds before the compressor and power unit can really be heard so capturing the consistent whine of the traction units was a simple task; simply walking alongside the train while it was moving slowly provided several sustained sections for use. The sound of the power unit in motion was trickier to capture as it does not really kick in until the train is traveling about 10mph, which incidentally is the average jogging speed of the typical sound recordist! I gathered some useful takes from jogging alongside the train in motion but there is a lot of noise generated when a condenser microphone is bounced about. Eventually I got much better takes of the power unit by positioning the microphone outside the train window, the wind shield on the mic performed admirably well until speeds of around 20mph.
The final task outside the train was to capture the sound of the 101's Horn, certainly the loudest sound the train makes by a large margin. The 101 horn has a very brassy tone compared to some of the other engines in RailSim. When recording sounds with a high SPL (Sound Pressure Level) there is always a trade off on quality based on how close you are to the source. Therefore I took several takes of the horn from various distances, get too close and the microphone may distort, too far away and the reverberations of the horn in the environment can swamp the recording.
Moving back inside the train the engineer shut down the main power so we could capture the sound of the compressor in isolation - another very important element of the way the 101 sounds. The final task of the day was to record the sound of every single switch and lever inside the cab, from the throttle right down to the headlight switches. We are taking great care to provide an accurate simulation of the controls in RailSim and the realistic sounds controls play a key part.
A lot of time and effort went into arranging this recording session. I'd like to thank Michael Schanz again for his patience and very accommodating nature in the face of my bizarre recording requests! I would also like to thank Geraldine Schaefer and Anette Szymkowiak of Deutsche Bahn marketing for putting us in touch with Dr Jochen Brandau of DB Netz who found us a suitable opportunity in the maintenance schedule. Finally I'd like to thank the technical manager at Dessau, Hans Zimmerman and all the engineering staff for allowing us access to the 101 during it's time in the shop.