Locomotive Bell Volume

[jbtower]

I've been noticing for years that the bell volume on most of my locomotives is too loud, at least in my opinion. I see and hear trains on the BNSF Mendota sub every day, and the bells simply aren't that loud, both inside and outside of the cab. My question is, can I decrease the sound output on my locomotives to a prototype level?

[ossie]

I don't know if there's a way around it from the ORTS end Kev but if you're handy with audio file editors changing volumes is simply a matter of opening the bell.wav sound files and reducing them to a level you're happy with. Depending on how many loco folders you've got it can be a lengthy process but the actual editing of .wav files is a few seconds work in each case.

[Whatever2006]

May I chime in about inserting the volume parameter inside the SMS file? I will leave an example from one of Erick's engine sounds here.

            Stream (
                Skip ( Bell Close )
                Priority ( 6 )
                Volume ( 0.35 )
                Triggers ( 2
                    Discrete_Trigger ( 10    StartLoopRelease ( 1    File ( "../../NAVS_AUDIO/Bells/x_Bell_Steel_60_BPM.wav" -1 )    SelectionMethod ( SequentialSelection )    )    )
                    Discrete_Trigger ( 11 ReleaseLoopReleaseWithJump ()    )
                )
                VolumeCurve(
                    DistanceControlled
                    CurvePoints ( 3
                              0        1.00
                             50        0.25
                            100        0.00
                    )
                    Granularity ( .001 )
                )
                VolumeCurve(
                    DistanceControlled
                    CurvePoints ( 8
                             1        0.80
                            10        0.40
                            20        0.34
                            40        0.28
                            80        0.22
                           160        0.16
                           640        0.04
                          1000        0.00
                    )
                    Granularity ( .001 )
                )
            )            )​

If you want to lower the volume of the bell without affecting the audio file directly via an audio editing software. Open up an SMS file of your choice and scroll to find the stream block for your bell and put the 'Volume ( 0 )' parameter. Do note I put a 0 there as an example there. After that, adjust the value to what you like.

[ossie]

Nicely done Eoin, thank you. That's the "ORTS end" I wasn't sure about covered as well now.

[jbtower]

Thanks you guys I'll grab a Guinea Pig and go play around!