Railworks America

Is there a special trick to replacing the whistle and bell on the FEF-3? I've been poking around in the file folder looking at which possible files need to be edited and am having trouble figuring out which file does what. Any assistance would be appreciated.

In the fef-3 sound files, there is a file called exterior or something and there is whistle start, running, and end.

Mike should be able to walk us through. The FEF and Connie's whistles are quite different when it comes to the sound in the cab. The Connie works off of one start, loop, and end. The FEF's cab whistle is another story. You can hear the whistle's pitch shift as the whistle cord is pulled down.

ZekTheKid wrote:Mike should be able to walk us through. The FEF and Connie's whistles are quite different when it comes to the sound in the cab. The Connie works off of one start, loop, and end. The FEF's cab whistle is another story. You can hear the whistle's pitch shift as the whistle cord is pulled down.

Actually, the Connie's whistle can also be quilled, just like the FEF-3.

In the advanced FEF-3, it was a lot more difficult to implement because it had to be combined with the way the whistle cord sways from side to side when the speed goes over 4mph.

I wouldn't recommend changing the sounds. The whistle loop is very carefully engineered to give a seamless loop when played continuously, so that you can blow the whistle for as long as you like, and to have seamless transitions between the start, loop and end. If you change them, you'll have to engineer the sound files equally carefully. It's especially difficult for the loop sound because it has to be very short (to prevent the whistle rom blowing for too long after releasing the whistle cord or button) and it's very hard to get a good sound whistle with a very short sample. You also have to use mono sounds so that the Doppler effect works, and an unfortunate side-effect of mono is that it tends to flatten the sound. I remember when I first did the chuffs for the Connie, I used stereo sounds and they were absolutely amazing, but then I had to replace them with mono for the sake of the Doppler, and it was impossible to get the same degree of clarity and dynamic range. The same goes for the whistle and bell (and all the mono sounds that need Doppler). I honestly think you'd have an extremely hard time making better sounds without breaking something.

One more thing to point out is that the bell and chuff sounds are synchronized with the animations and that means they are script-driven. If you have low fps, the animations obviously slow down, but that in turn slows down the frequency of the bell and chuffs. That's why some people find the bell running slower - it's for exactly the same reason as the chuffs and animations running slower, i.e. low fps which can be the result of running at graphic settings that are too high for the computer's GPU to handle (so you need to lower the settings or install a better GPU).

mrennie wrote:Actually, the Connie's whistle can also be quilled, just like the FEF-3.

I meant when inside the FEF's cab, you can hear the individual pitch shifts as the cord gets lower. You could also hold that down with the enter key to change that pitch, too. The connie just has the same quillable whistle inside and outside. The pitch shifts aren't audible in the cab the way the whistle cord is pulled down like in the FEF.

BTW, I've changed the connie whistle before.

ZekTheKid wrote:

mrennie wrote:Actually, the Connie's whistle can also be quilled, just like the FEF-3.

I meant when inside the FEF's cab, you can hear the individual pitch shifts as the cord gets lower. You could also hold that down with the enter key to change that pitch, too. The connie just has the same quillable whistle inside and outside. The pitch shifts aren't audible in the cab the way the whistle cord is pulled down like in the FEF.

BTW, I've changed the connie whistle before.

It's audible in the cab too, if you pull the whistle just a little bit - you have to be gentle with it.

Did you change the Connie's whistle using the Reading 6-chime I sent or with your own sounds? The Reading 6-chime was also carefully engineered to give seamless transitions.

mrennie wrote:Did you change the Connie's whistle using the Reading 6-chime I sent or with your own sounds? The Reading 6-chime was also carefully engineered to give seamless transitions.

With my own whistle I recorded off of youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n39IrrJFpY

ZekTheKid wrote:

mrennie wrote:Did you change the Connie's whistle using the Reading 6-chime I sent or with your own sounds? The Reading 6-chime was also carefully engineered to give seamless transitions.

With my own whistle I recorded off of youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n39IrrJFpY

Very good ... congratulations

EDIT: By the way, in the video, you were losing a lot of boiler pressure. and I could see several reasons why. The loco now starts the scenarios with the fire quite low - there is just enough coal to maintain boiler pressure while the loco is standing still. That's to prevent the safety from popping early on, especially if you're going to do switching. If you're going to need a lot of steam, you have to build up the fire and try to get the fire mass to 650lbs (or as close as possible). You also need to open the damper fully (that's something that a lot of people forget, probably because DTG didn't bother to put a damper control in the HUD, which in my opinion is a terrible oversight on their part). Once you get underway, you also need to keep a close eye on the boiler pressure. If it drops below 195psi, you should do something to stop it dropping further - reduce the reverser (shorten the cutoff), or the throttle, or both. If that means the loco has to go slower, or accelerate more slowly, let it do that. The worst thing you can do is to try to force it to go faster by keeping the cutoff too long. All that does is to make the boiler pressure fall even more, totally negating the benefit of the longer cutoff. I often see people doing that - slowing down (because the boiler pressure is dropping) and trying to counter that by increasing the reverser. Eventually they run out of steam with the reverser all the way forward. You just have to let the loco find its own cruising speed. When it slows down, it uses less steam, and at the right speed everything is properly balanced and she'll keep going at that speed.

I'm still trying to handle your connie, it's confusing since I'm used to driving the FEF-3 or the GS-4. I'm all worried when the firebox reads 104% coal.

ZekTheKid wrote:I'm still trying to handle your connie, it's confusing since I'm used to driving the FEF-3 or the GS-4. I'm all worried when the firebox reads 104% coal.

104%! That would smother the fire. Try to get it to about 64%.

mrennie wrote:104%! That would smother the fire. Try to get it to about 64%.

Yeah...... I was busy trying to get a good screenshot and forgot to turn the coal off.

Anyway, I think it could be possible to change the FEF's whistle.

I've done it before, using the 765 Whistle Pack from here:

http://railworksamerica.com/index.php/d ... =25:sounds

I also found that the NW J Class whistle actually worked pretty well as a replacement, but I had to increase the volume of all three sound files in Audacity by 6 dB to make it sound right.

In Assets\Smokebox\UP FEF-3 Northern\Audio\RailVehicles\Steam\UPFEF3\UPFEF3 Audio Control.proxyxml, change the three whistle sounds to .wav instead of .dav. This will keep the original whistle in place, in case you'd like to go back to it. Make a backup of the Audio Control file, of course.

Rename your three modified whistle sounds to Whistle Start.wav, Whistle Running.wav, and Whistle End.wav, and place them in the folder Assets\Smokebox\UP FEF-3 Northern\Audio\RailVehicles\Steam\UPFEF3\SoundBites\Mono.

Ah so it is the same as the connie.

Edit: It is not the same. The interior cannot be changed, only the exterior whistle can.