Those of us who may own a Broadway Limited diesel engine with Paragon 2/3 sound know that function key 8 (F8) acts as a mute button and also a volume control. A single press mutes the sound and double presses cycle through multiple steps which increase the engine volume until you reach the maximum volume and then it starts over at minimum volume.
What you may not know is that ESU LokSound v4 and v5 decoders also have this capability. You just need to map the functionality to a function key as this is not default behavior. Here's how.
After loading the appropriate sound file into the programmer click on the decoder view pane and select the function mapping screen shown in figure 1.
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| Figure 1 |
Select a function key mapping that is either empty or one that you can do without. Here, the author selects F6 since very few of his locomotives have a need for the AUX outputs. Also staying within the lower numbered function keys allows easy access. Do not select the prime mover sound slot. That will not work. Click on the Physical outputs column and un-check any functions that are there, figure 2.
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| Figure 2 |
Now switch to the Logical functions column click on it and select Volume control shown in figure 3.
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| Figure 3 |
Write the decoder data to the engine and you are done. That's it! There is no need to write the sound file to the decoder (30 minutes) as these adjustments only change decoder data not sound data. Now F6 functions as a mute/volume control. A single press mutes all engine sound and double presses cycle through the six sound levels. Easy enough.
If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post it.
Recent postings in the LokSound group at groups.io confirm this function as described and also provide the following additional information:
ReplyDeleteThe Volume control function does its work by changing the value of the Master Volume in CV63. It cycles through six fixed values of 32, 64, 96, 128, 160, 192. Any value previously stored in CV63 is lost.
This also applies to Select decoders.
I have a function mapping that says if, say, F27 is on AND you press the momentary F2 horn key then it does the logical volume control -- you can hear to effect on the horn volume as you proceed. Then turn off the F27 (or whatever) key to exit that mode.
ReplyDeleteHy Anonymous - what an interesting trick. I will try that. Thanks
ReplyDelete