Looping horn trouble

[Pizzapizza]

I know how to make a single horn sound, the problem I’m having is when I put my horn sound in all 3 spaces (start,loop,end) to make a looping sound it plays it back 2 horn blast can’t get a short or continuous horn, how do you actually do the files before putting them into the start, loop, end on Railpro’s assist page , I use audacity. Thanks John

[nodcc4me]

John, you have to split your horn file into three parts, then put them in the start, loop and end spaces. I think you can do that in Audacity, but I have not tried it.

[Alan]

Using your audio editor create separate files for the beginning, middle (looping), end. It will take some trial and err to find the perfect spot to break the original file.

Starting with this audio:


Select the beginning part of the horn blast (in white) and copy to new file:


Select the middle looping part and copy to new file:


Finally, select the last part and copy to new file:


You can paste each of the new files sequentially into a temporary file to hear how it sounds. Paste in multiple copies of the middle file to make sure your looping part sounds good during a long blast.

[Pizzapizza]

So you’re saying the middle part is just a single file of the original you do not have to create a looping in the program itself to send to the Railpro assist correct?,  and yes I recorded the original horn using ProTools with an awesome reverb that the Longhorn itself sounds absolutely amazing probably too much of a reverb around six seconds after the blast but it sounds really good !

[William Brillinger]

Take a look at some of the sound file sets in the download section to see how it works.
https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/board,4.0.html

Perhaps once you've got your file working the way you want, you'll post it too.

[William Brillinger]

There are some ideas here that will get you going:
https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,318.msg2267.html#msg2267

[Alan]

So you’re saying the middle part is just a single file of the original you do not have to create a looping in the program itself to send to the Railpro assist correct?,  and yes I recorded the original horn using ProTools with an awesome reverb that the Longhorn itself sounds absolutely amazing probably too much of a reverb around six seconds after the blast but it sounds really good !

You may be thinking of MIDI sequences where you create actual loops. RP works with an audio bitstream. Analogous to MIDI = vector art (EPS math instructions) and WAV = raster art (JPEG bit-by-bit image).

The RP module simply replays your center audio file over and over thus creating the looping.

[Pizzapizza]

 OK that’s what I was kind of wondering about the middle section if you had actually make the loop or if the RailPro assistant  does it itself ,that should make it a little easier ,  so just out of curiosity should the first and last samples be a lot shorter than the middle ? I’ll experiment a little bit with it tonight see what I can come up with .
 Thanks for all your help, John

[William Brillinger]

download a few of the samples in the file section and have a look at them in audacity.

[Alan]

OK that’s what I was kind of wondering about the middle section if you had actually make the loop or if the RailPro assistant  does it itself ,that should make it a little easier ,  so just out of curiosity should the first and last samples be a lot shorter than the middle ? I’ll experiment a little bit with it tonight see what I can come up with .
 Thanks for all your help, John

That is a personal artistic choice. What sounds good to your ear?

Ideally, all the files should be relatively short especially the first and last as their combined length determines minimum duration upon button press. The reality is you will be constrained by your source audio. The suitable cut points in your audio file ultimately determine how much latitude you have. For example look at the horn end selection in my example. It trails off very slowly. Not a great candidate as it means even a quick button press will still yield a long horn trail off. Your audio editor will have tools with which you can shorten the clip timeframe but use them with discretion. It is terribly easy to ruin the fidelity of the horn.

[Pizzapizza]

Oh lord  that should be fun I have a 5 second large hall reverb added to the horn , it sounds awesome I wonder how that’s going to affect it though 

[Alan]

I suspect not well.

Remember, the sound will be played back by a tiny speaker with very limited frequency range especially at the bottom end. I seriously doubt a big hall reverb effect coming from an itsy bitsy little speaker will sound anything at all like a big hall.

[Pizzapizza]

Actually I’ve already got it download it as a single sound file and it sounds way better than anything I’ve ever heard in my entire life includes ESU  , yes you can definitely have a big hall reverb on there I roll off everything under 160 cycles and I take a small 2K dip in the equalizer and then push the high-end just a little bit to compensate for the shell and it sounds in my opinion very very good,  when I succeed at this sound file I will post it so everybody can use it and you’re right what may sound very very good to me may not to somebody else but As I was saying I use the reverb from protools and then knock it down to  audacity  and as a joke I put about a 15 second Large hall  reverb on it and  you could hear all 15 seconds in a little sugar cube speakers and sounded amazing way too long of course but it was  amazing  very clean and very defined

[Alan]

Will be interested in hearing your final file. Rock on!

[Pizzapizza]

 Still working on it, oh my God the middle looping section is way too obvious got to try to smooth it out