Back to the 60's!
No, not flared trousers, kipper ties or mind-altering drugs, I'm afraid it's bad news for whistler fans; the 40 project has temporarily returned to the back-burner as the weekend threw up another opportunity to attempt the Class 60 engine recordings. I wasn't going to take any chances this time and with Paul Chetter's assistance, three mics were brought to bear; one in the engine room, one against the grille closest to the engine room, and another on the bodyside near the exhaust. The engine room track captured the character of the loco very well and also sounds great through a bass reflex speaker in a test-bed loco so we're now cooking by gas. The auxiliary sounds are all done so as soon as I've edited and programmed the engine sounds and completed final testing it's a runner. I'm guessing two or three weeks.
It's worth highlighting the cost of recording trips such as this. On this occasion the venue was two and a half hours away from me and an early start was called for so I travelled down the day before and stayed in a hotel. Being a Bank Holiday everywhere was booked up and I ended up paying over a hundred quid including breakfast. Add an evening meal and a tank of diesel for the return trip and you're looking at close to £200. This is in addition to the cost of getting the rest of the sounds last time (same venue, cheaper hotel, perhaps £150 in total), and before you count the 40 or so man hours of editing and programming (and any fee paid to loco owners etc in other circumstances). It's tough work but someone's got to do it :-)
In the photo, 60011 breezes up the Lickey on the 28th Feb 2012.
With the loan of Hornby's latest 90 & 92 models from Charlie, the two sound projects have been tweaked to suit the modern mechanisms. Sound fitting is very straightforward on both and even with a standard speaker inside they sound really good.
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