I need the whistle. I've searched and found files, but all of them are flat and thin 8-bit mono files. I need to share this story with you...
So yesterday morning I got home from work. I played around with different instruments, and came up with a melody for guitar. So then I throw on a drum track, and throw a low pass on the whole thing to degrade it. As I was EQ'ing the guitar, I hear a train. We have a few trains that pass through our community (about 20 blocks away from here) so when it whistled it sounded like it was in my instrumental. It seemed like it was meant to happen, and it sounded perfect. I NEVER use sound effects in my music, but that happened, and I think a train whistle in the background on that very part would help this beat out a lot. The timbre of this whistle just sounded right in it. I'm not looking for the train whistles you would hear on old TV shows or anything. Just looking for the siren you hear on today's trains. Anybody know of a good one out there somewhere?
I need a sample of a train
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- Skunk Mod
- 21249 posts since 10 Jun, 2004 from Pony Pasture
Googling for whistle might not get what you want. If they're like around here, your trains will use a horn, not a whistle.
Whistles were on steam engines, and in the hands of a skilled engineer/whistle player could voiced and articulated so as to "talk" (though the rail companies disapproved of such virtuosity, preferring standardization.
Diesel locos with horns can be highly evocative too, and I do love to hear them in the distance. But engineers driving modern diesels can't play them with a fine touch, feather the steam to bend pitch, or otherwise give truly individual voices to their steel giants.
Modernization giveth and it taketh away.
... anyway, try searching for train horn rather than whistle, and see if that helps. Good luck!
Whistles were on steam engines, and in the hands of a skilled engineer/whistle player could voiced and articulated so as to "talk" (though the rail companies disapproved of such virtuosity, preferring standardization.
Diesel locos with horns can be highly evocative too, and I do love to hear them in the distance. But engineers driving modern diesels can't play them with a fine touch, feather the steam to bend pitch, or otherwise give truly individual voices to their steel giants.
Modernization giveth and it taketh away.
... anyway, try searching for train horn rather than whistle, and see if that helps. Good luck!
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- Rad Grandad
- 38041 posts since 6 Sep, 2003 from Downeast Maine
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1891 posts since 9 Oct, 2004 from Columbus,Ohio
I should have known. A whistle would be way too silent to hearfrom so far away. Thanks.
"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live."
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- Skunk Mod
- 21249 posts since 10 Jun, 2004 from Pony Pasture
Heh, steam whistles are plenty loud! Some are quite shrill, very penetrating. Those big horns (air-driven, I think) on the diesels are probably louder... but not nearly as musical on their own.
As part of the background for a musical composition, you want the kind you hear nowadays though, not sounds from the 1950s and earlier. :-)
P.S.: Factory whistles traditionally used steam too, since so much steam machinery was used in factories. Those had to be very loud to be heard at all.
Hink: Cool page!
As part of the background for a musical composition, you want the kind you hear nowadays though, not sounds from the 1950s and earlier. :-)
P.S.: Factory whistles traditionally used steam too, since so much steam machinery was used in factories. Those had to be very loud to be heard at all.
Hink: Cool page!
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- KVRist
- 47 posts since 25 Jul, 2005
... some very good sound effects, also trains, can be found here :
http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html
http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1891 posts since 9 Oct, 2004 from Columbus,Ohio
I understand. The horn was what I was looking for in the first place, but for some reason I never thought of the horn; rather, I was thinking of the whistle but I was after the horn.
"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live."
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1891 posts since 9 Oct, 2004 from Columbus,Ohio
Perfect, I found the horn and it sounds pretty good.NoMax wrote:... some very good sound effects, also trains, can be found here :
http://www.therecordist.com/pages/downloads.html
"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live."
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- KVRAF
- 2070 posts since 2 Apr, 2004
They have some trains here and lots of other stuff:
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/